Leroux: Condensed
by The Lark
Summary: The original novel made simple. Hopefully good for a laugh or two.
1. I

Leroux Condensed

By: The Lark

Disclaimer: I don't own it. Does anyone out there actually think I do?

Prologue--

The Opera Ghost is real. No, really, I've tracked down written proof and everything. I'm totally serious. STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!

Gaston Leroux

The Paris Opera House, 1881:

It was the night of the gala the Paris Opera House was having to mark the retirement of its managers, and the Prima Ballerina, Sorelli, was innocently running through her lines when all of a sudden…

"AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH!" …a bunch of screaming ballet rats burst through her dressing room door, slammed it shut, locked it, and then pushed a dresser in front of it. Super-Gluing the hinges together just to be on the safe side, they piled into the wardrobe and barred that door closed, too.

Sorelli didn't bother to try and get them out, as this was a much more common occurrence than you'd think and she was starting to get used to it. "What's the matter with you kids this time?" she asked sarcastically. "Is Bigfoot hiding in your closet? Or has the Vampire Von Krolock started stalking you again?"

"Possibly," Jammes' muffled voice replied from inside the wardrobe, "but the reason we're in here is because we just saw the Opera Ghost."

"AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH!" La Sorelli screamed, throwing the wardrobe open and climbing inside with the girls, tossing a few of them out to make enough room. "You really saw the ghost?" She barred the door shut again. "Ooooh, tell! What'd he look like? Was he, like, some kind of oozing slime monster?"

"No."

"Oh. Well, was he wearing rags and rattling chains or something?"

Little Meg Giry shuffles her feet awkwardly. "Well…no…actually, he was wearing a very stylish evening suit."

La Sorelli quirked an eyebrow. "Oh. Well, was he all transparent when you looked at him?"

"Um…no, not really."

Sorelli, getting disappointed, stared at the ballet girls around her skeptically. "Then, what exactly, made you think he was a ghost?"

Jammes folded her arms defensively. "Hey, his face was really, really ugly."

Sorelli sighed. "Well, I guess that's a start."

"See!"

"We told you!"

There was a long awkward pause. "So, how much air do we have in here, anyway?"

"Uh-oh…"

"AAAAAAGH!"

"Help!"

In a flurry of pink ballet shoes, they somehow managed to kick the doors open again, and they all came tumbling out. Sorelli got on her feet and cautiously looked around. "Hey, there's no ghost out here. Aw, I bet you didn't even see a ghost! " She glared. "So help me, if you guys set me up for 'Candid Camera' again…"

Jammes stamped her foot stubbornly. "No, there really _is_ a ghost. We saw him! That gossipy stagehand Buquet's seen him too! He says he's got no nose, and hardly any hair, and his eyes are like black holes, and he's all bones like a skeleton."

Sorelli listened raptly. "Finally, some details!"

Meg fidgeted uncomfortably. "Uh, maybe we should shut up while we've still got the chance. My mom knows the ghost and she says he doesn't like people blabbing rumors about his unspeakable hideousness."

Then there was a knock at the heavily barricaded door. "Hey, everybody, guess what? You know that gossipy stagehand Buquet? Well, we just found his mangled corpse hanging in the basement!"

"Told ya," Meg gloated.

Meanwhile, up in the managers' office…

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHH!" Mercier, the acting manager, came running in screaming bloody murder. "There's a stagehand down in the third cellar who's been brutally murdered! He's been hanged by the ceiling and…oh, the humanity!"

Monsieur Debienne, surrounded by empty wine bottles, looked up at him hazily. "Dude, can't this wait until later? You're really putting a damper on our retirement party, here."

Monsieur Poligny slapped him cheerfully on the back. "Yeah, sit down and have a drink. No sense in letting a silly little murder interrupt what's otherwise been a very enjoyable evening."

Monsieur Mercier gaped incredulously. "Hello? Are you people listening to me? The Opera Ghost just viciously slaughtered a guy only a few floors below our feet, and any one of us could be next!"

Monsieur Moncharmin, one of the new managers, waved a hand dismissively. "Aw, there's no ghost. The guy probably just hanged himself."

His partner, Monsieur Firmin, paused to scrawl a note in his day planner. "Note to self; introduce a program to boost employee morale."

Mercier shook Moncharmin by the shoulders. "Okay, so if the guy hanged himself, who was it that cut him down after he was dead?"

"I dunno." Moncharmin shrugged. "Maybe that vampire, what-his-name, Von Krolock? I hear he's been seen around here a couple of times lately."

The first landing of the opera house…

After hacking their way out of the barricaded dressing room with a conveniently placed fire ax, Sorelli decided to take the ballet girls around the opera house to investigate the unspeakably gory murder of their friend Buquet. It sounded like good, clean fun, perfect for a bunch of impressionable children. Unfortunately, they were so excited they forgot to watch where they were going. Sorelli ran smack into Philippe, Comte de Chagny on the way down.

Philippe was the head of one of the most noble aristocratic families in France. And he was rich. And he was fairly good looking. And he was rich, too. And he was nice enough guy. And he was also pretty rich. And he had excellent manners. Plus, he was FILTHY, STINKIN' RICH…anyways…

"Hey, baby," Count Philippe greeted. "Ya know, if you're trying to find new ways to get my attention, can you try coming up with something that doesn't involve me getting crushed into a pancake?" He rubs his bruised head. "Oh well. At least the play was good, especially that wonderful new diva Christine Daae."

"Christine Daae?" Meg spoke up. "Yeah, she was brilliant tonight. Funny thing, too, seeing as how she totally sucked a couple months ago. Must've got herself a copy of that new self help video, 'From Drudge to Diva in Ninety Days'. Anywho, shove over, Chagny; we've got places to go and corpses to ogle."

"Dang, you people already heard about the murder? You must be the most gossipy bunch of chicks in this hemisphere!"

Sorelli scowled at him. "We're nineteenth-century ballet dancers. About the only things we've got to do around here are gossiping, dancing, and occasionally milking rich noblemen for money." She paused for a moment, looking Philippe over appraisingly, then draped an arm around him. "By the way, Phil, have I told you lately how much I love that new hairdo?"

Philippe giggled absurdly. "Hehe. Thanks. Come on, let's go party." He glanced over his shoulder, waving to his little brother, Raoul. "Hey sport, wanna come with?"

"No thanks. I've got to go see Christine Daae." Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny was a shy, charming young sailor with blond hair and blue eyes. He was twenty-one years old, and dreamed of going to the North Pole. Some people said he was looking for adventure; others said he was just looking for Santa Claus. But Philippe had decided that, before Raoul went off to the Pole and either lost a limb to frostbite or joined an elven toy factory, he'd show him a little fun.

Sadly, showing Raoul a little fun was harder said than done. Either they'd drummed all the life out of him at that military school of his, or they'd put some kind of computer chip in his brain. Philippe had tried to take him drinking, and Raoul had refused, insisting that they needed a designated driver. Philippe had then suggested that they go gambling, but the boy just fallen to his knees and started praying for his soul. Finally, he'd given up and taken the kid to the opera. A small measure of hope had sparked inside him when Raoul had started checking out the girl playing the lead, Christine Daae. "That brilliant new opera singer who fainted onstage tonight you mean?"

"Yep. I'm just…uh… gonna go and…er, make sure she's all right! Yeah, that's it." He took off like a shot toward her dressing room.

TBC…

A/N: Am writing this at the request of a couple of friends of mine who had trouble getting through the original novel. Let me know whether it sucks or I should continue. Thx!


	2. II

Philippe de Chagny decided to follow his brother to Christine's dressing room as a precaution. He figured the boy might need someone there to block the doorway in case he got cold feet. They made their way quickly down the hall, which wasn't easy, as it was clogged with screaming fans and the few ballet rats who hadn't run off to check out the mangled corpse in the basement.

Raoul's timing was perfect. Christine was just starting to come to as he entered her room. He shoved his way haphazardly through yet another throng of screaming fans. "Am-scray, will you? The woman needs some air, plus I'm not really practiced enough yet to flirt in front of a live audience."

Christine, still a bit drowsy, struggled into a sitting position. "Auntie Em, is that you?"

"No!" Raoul's face turned several interesting shades of red. "Christine, it's me, Raoul."

Christine blinked groggily. "Doesn't ring a bell. Now beat it, blondie."

"Huh? Come on, I'm Raoul de Chagny, remember? We met at the beach when we were kids…look, here comes a flashback scene…"

Little Christine stood crying on the beach, one hand pressed swooningly to her forehead. "Help! Oh, somebody help! My scarf blew away in the wind and I'm way too weak to go get it myself!"

She was about to yell for Superman, when Little Raoul magically appeared on the shore. "Here I come to save the day!" He jumped into the water, swam out to some jagged rocks that the scarf had become tangled in, then grabbed it and splashed back over to Christine with a lot of seaweed hanging from his ears and shoulders.

"My hero!" said little Christine.

"I think I've got swimmer's ear," said little Raoul.

Christine burst out laughing. "Is this supposed to be some kind of come-on? That is soooo pathetic!"

Raoul slumped his shoulders and shuffled dejectedly out of the room. "Dude, that was harsh. I always figured that if she liked me even back when we were still going through the 'cooties' phase, she'd be crazy about me now." He sighed. "Well, what am I going do now? I guess I could just camp here outside her door. She's got to come out sometime." He nods resolutely. "Okay, then. Phil, you go on without me, I'm stay--"

Philippe, who had somehow become handcuffed to La Sorelli and lost his hat in favor of a large punch bowl, was already halfway down the hall. "If you insist!"

Raoul stood there at the door for the next few hours, trying to dredge up the courage to knock. He was idly thumbing through a book Philippe had given him for his birthday, A Thousand and One Pickup Lines for the Awkward Victorian Nobleman, when all of a sudden he heard a man's voice coming from inside the room.

"Say you'll love me every waking moment!" the mysterious voice thundered. "And understand, this is not a request. A simple nod will suffice."

"Hey, what are you getting so bent out of shape about? I just sang myself into a freaking coma for you."

Raoul's heart began to pound about three feet out of his chest in the classic Hanna-Barbara cartoon fashion. "Why that little--! Some strange guy's trying to steal my line! And my girlfriend! Well, okay, she's not _technically_ my girlfriend yet…but I'm still going to beat the snot out of him!"

With that thought in mind, the vicomte reached into a case on the wall and pulled out another conveniently placed fire ax. "Wow, that was handy. Pity they didn't have all these things lying around in the Schumacher film."

Christine left soon after that, leaving the door unlocked behind her. Raoul snuck up and peered into the dark, empty room. "Hehe, you're trapped now, whoever you are! Eat steel, punk!" With that, he lifted the ax, charged into the dark room, and swung furiously at a mysterious dark figure standing in the corner.

"Take that! And that! And a little of that! Heh heh! You ain't pretty no more!" Then, belatedly, he realized it would probably be a good idea to turn on the lights and get a look at what he had been chopping into a million pieces. Sadly, it turned out not to be his mysterious rival; just an unfortunate dressmaker's dummy that was now missing its head and several limbs. Face reddening, Raoul dropped the ax, put his hands behind his back, and walked out of the room while whistling innocently.

He is in such a hurry to leave that, on his way out, he nearly tripped over the mangled corpse of Joseph Buquet, which was being carted off by the coroner and trailed by several ballet girls with Polaroid cameras. The vicomte scratched his head thoughtfully. "Is it just me, or does this look suspiciously like foreshadowing?"

Meanwhile, back at the retirement party, La Sorelli was again innocently running through her speech when…

"AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHH!" she was interrupted by a bunch of screaming ballet rats.

La Sorelli jumped. "What is wrong with you kids! There are other words in this language besides 'AAAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!'"

"It's not our fault! We just saw the Opera Ghost again!" Jammes defended.

Meg was running in circles like a chicken with its head cut off. "Ohmygodweareallgonnadieohmygodheisgonnakillusall…" she shrieked hysterically.

"Calm down, little girl," an old man said, patting Jammes on the head. "And Mme. Giry, maybe you should try to settle your daughter down."

But Mme. Giry was too busy running around in circles like a chicken with its head cut off to hear him. "Ohmygodweareallgonnadieohmygodheisgonnakillusall…" she muttered hysterically.

La Sorelli throws her 3x5 speech cards over her shoulder. "Ugh! This is the last time I ever try to say something nice about any of you people!" She grabs Philippe by the arm. "Come on, Philippe, let's blow this Popsicle stand and go down to Vegas for the weekend!"

Monsieur Debienne stood up to speak without batting an eyelash. This sort of thing also happened more often than you would think, and they had gotten used to it. "Well, bye, everybody, we've got to jet. Good luck with the Opera Ghost, and Bigfoot, and that Vampire Von Krolock, and any other mythical creatures who might turn up around here."

Monsieur Poligny led the new managers, Armand Moncharmin and Firmin Richard, up to the podium. "We've got something for you two that might help you out if you're ever being chased through the halls by one of our resident monsters." He tossed them a key. "This will open every door in the opera house."

Everyone cooed, staring at the key as though hypnotized. "Woah, shiny!"

Meanwhile, an anorexic with a fake nose had taken advantage of this little distraction to slip into the room unnoticed. "Ooooh, you guys have six flavors of ice cream! Gimme gimme gimme!" With that, he snatched the serving bowl off the table, and began to snarf it down using a spoon in each hand.

The entire room stared at him in horror, finally starting to realize that this nut was the Opera Ghost. The mysterious stranger flushed slightly. "Hey, cut me some slack. It's been years since I've had a decent meal. I _am_ a bachelor, after all. I burn eggs, I burn toast, and yesterday, I somehow managed to burn Jell-o."

They just continued to gape. The managers turned white, and several ballet girls fainted. The ghost's eyes lit up with understanding. "Oh, right. The whole 'Opera Ghost' thing. Just give me a second to get into character." He stood up straight and plastered a foreboding look to his face. "Yeah, that's right." His voice dropped an octave, growing sinister. "I killed that little whelp Buquet, and I'd do it again! Better watch your back! Mwahahahahahaha!"

Monsieur Richard blinked. "What the hell was _that_?"

Monsieur Debienne cleared his throat nervously. "Er, that was the Opera Ghost I told you about earlier."

Monsieur Moncharmin chuckled. "Sure, sure. No, seriously, what is this, some kind of hazing ritual?"

Monsieur Richard burst out laughing. "Hah! Opera Ghost, that's a good one!"

"No, we're really serious. He lives in the opera house, and you're going to have to keep Box Five empty for him during every performance. Oh, and he might pop up and murder an employee or two on occasion. Oh, and one more thing; you'll have to pay him twenty-thousand francs a months."

Richard and Moncharmin immediately stopped laughing.

"Well, it's getting late, and the ghost ate all my ice cream. We'd better jet. Come on, Deb." Poligny led his partner out of the building.

Moncharmin turned to Richard, one eyebrow arched. "Jeez, what do you think they've been smoking?"

TBC…


	3. III

The new managers ignored both the warnings and the hangings for the next few days and got down to business.

Firmin Richard was a brilliant composer who had been known to have very violent mood swings at times. Which could make a person wonder why he and the Phantom didn't get along better.

His partner, Armand Moncharmin, was a tone-deaf schmoozer who blew all of his time writing in his sixteen-volume diary. I actually got the chance to read it. (Which wasn't an easy trick, considering he'd put some of those little locks on the books to keep his mother from reading them.) Anyway, most of it was total drivel:

3 January

Dear Diary,

I think Jennifer likes me. She passed me a note the other day, but the vice principal…er, I mean my partner… took it away before I could read it.

25 January

Dear Diary,

I talked to Jennifer's best friend Stacey, and it turns out she doesn't like me after all. She was just trying to use me to make Tommy jealous. Gosh, I'm depressed. Maybe a nice trip to the mall will cheer me up. I'll buy one of those chocolate sundaes I like, get my hair done, maybe a manicure…

6 February

Dear Diary,

Mother and I just had a huge fight. I caught her going through my stuff again. Oh, why can't she just learn to respect my privacy? She never treated my older sister like this. Grrr, I hate her so much!

It went on like this for pages and pages. Anyway, the point is that Moncharmin was too busy doodling page after page of "Jennifer plus Armand equals love" to notice when the Phantom of the Opera snuck in and dropped a bunch of letters in bright red ink on his head. But luckily, Richard walked in not too much later.

"Moncharmin, there's something in your hair."

"Uh-oh. It's not another pair of women's underwear, is it? Because I had a devil of a time explaining the last one to Mother."

"Nope, looks like a letter." Richard cleared his throat and began to read:

_Dear Richard and Moncharmin,_

_I'm not going to try and tell you how to do your job. If you want to keep that squawking hag Carlotta, that lumbering ox Sorelli, and that giggling airhead Jammes working here, that's your problem. However, I'm going to have to insist that you give the lead role tonight to that hot…er, I_ _mean **talented** Christine_ _Daae. Oh, and one more thing. I hear you've started renting out my private box, and am going to give you two choices; knock it off, or lie in the hospital for next few months and listen to your bones healing._

_--Your pal,_

_O.G._

Monsieur Richard rolled his eyes. "Looks like they're still keeping up that "Opera Ghost" prank. Whole thing is pretty weak, if you ask me. Everybody knows you can't have a good practical joke without involving plastic vomit in some way."

Monsieur Moncharmin just shrugged and picked up his diary again. "Aw, give them the box back and let them have their fun. We've got more important things to do than track down some stupid prankster." He picked up a pen and began writing again. "'_Dear Diary, I was just talking to Richard, and it looks like the Opera Ghost has a crush on Christine. I wonder if he's going to ask her to the prom? It's coming up, and it might be nice if they could share a limo with Jennifer and me…'"_

So Box Five was empty again that night. Well, kind of. Mme. Giry was in there all evening, beating off any potential snoops with her cane, and every few seconds, nearby spectators could hear a mysterious voice echoing from the box.

"Ah, this is terrible," the voice grumbled. "We need another first bassoon, and that third trombone has to go. Then again, I might just be cranky because I'm hungry. I burned my dinner into an inedible hunk of charcoal again. Hey, Giry! Here's five francs. Go down to the lobby and grab me some popcorn and a Slurpie."

"Do you really think that's wise?" Mme. Giry replied hesitantly. "You just had two boxes of Goobers, and you know what too much sugar does to you."

"HEY!" the voice thundered impatiently. "Who's the ghost here? Just do as you're told."

The next morning, the managers found another yet another bright red note stuck to Moncharmin's head. It read;

Dear Richard and Moncharmin,

I see you decided to keep your bones intact. Good choice. Christine was brilliant again last night, and everyone else was slightly less awful than usual. Now all you have to do is give me my money and we can all be one big happy opera-house family. Well, not really, but I'll at least try not to kill any more of you.

--Your pal,

O.G.

Monsieur Richard rolled his eyes. "Oh, for heaven's sake, this has gone far enough! Moncharmin, send for Mme. Giry. Maybe she'll be able to tell us who the idiot behind this is…. Moncharmin?"

Monsieur Moncharmin hadn't heard any of this. He was intensely focused on his latest diary entry. "_Dear Diary, do you think I've put on weight? I've been having some trouble finding a date for the prom, and I think I might have to go on a diet soon. I tried asking Mother for an opinion, but she just told me--"_

"Moncharmin!"

"Oh, what is it now?"

Finally, Richard managed to wrestle the diary out of his partners hands and he sent for Mme. Giry. She appeared in their office within minutes, smiling and waving cheerfully. "Heya!"

Richard scowled. "Can the sweet talk, lady. Are you the one who's been playing ghost around here lately?"

Mme. Giry looked insulted. "Of course not! Honestly, I'm a grown woman! To even suggest that I could be playing such a ridiculous, adolescent trick. Don't you people think I'm a little more mature than that?"

"I suppose you're right," Richard conceded sheepishly. "Moncharmin, maybe it wasn't her after all."

"Of course it's not me. The ghost is real."

The managers just stared at her. A lot.

Finally, Moncharmin broke the long, awkward silence by asking "Erm…just how do you know that?"

"Because he talks to me all the time. He's got a lovely voice too. If you ask me, he should have taken up singing professionally. He and that vampire chum of his could form a really cool band."

"He talks to you?"

"What does he say?"

She shrugged. "Mostly, he just asks me to take care of his private box and occasionally, to get him candy. Oh, and last night he wanted me to bring him a footstool--"

"A footstool? What is he, some kind of sissy?"

"No. He wanted it for his girlfriend."

At that, Moncharmin burst into tears, grabbed his diary, and began to scribble away again. _"'Dear Diary, I'm so depressed. I must be the most pathetic loser alive. Even the Opera Ghost has a girlfriend and I don't!'"_

Mme. Giry eyed him quizzically, then looked to Monsieur Richard as though asking for an explanation. "Uh…what's the deal with him?"

"_Shut up, shut up, shut up_!" Moncharmin bawled. "You are _so_ fired!"

While all this was going on, Raoul de Chagny had been at home pining away for Christine. Since he had never been much of a drinker, the vicomte had spent the last couple of days trying to drown his sorrows in milkshakes, and so he was nauseous in addition to all the heartaches.

Count Philippe patted his brother on the head with some concern. "Come on, sport. Nothing's all that bad."

But Raoul wouldn't be consoled. "It is too! She won't talk to me, she won't tell me where she is, and she won't answer my letters. I'm only twenty-one and my love life is already turning into a bad country-western song!" He poured some raspberry milkshake into a shot glass.

One of the servants walked into the room. "Monsieur le Vicomte, I brought you those maraschino cherries and whipped cream you asked for. Oh, and there's a letter for you from a Mlle. Daae."

"Yes! Thanks, Fred." Raoul grabbed the letter and eagerly read through it.

Dear Raoul,

I haven't forgotten you. But of course, you must understand that it would be most inappropriate for us to meet again. Have a nice life.

--No longer your pal,

Christine Daae

P.S.: By the way, I thought you might be interested to know that I'm going to be in Perros tomorrow. At the church where we used to play when we were kids. At the bottom of the hill, near the side of the road. I'll be wearing my black dress and the hat with the flower on it. I'll be there from two until seven. Just a little side note.

Raoul frowned and handed the letter to his brother. "Hey, you know more about girls than I do. Is she coming on to me, or does she just have a really short attention span?"

"I'd say it's probably a come-on."

"Yes! In that case, I'm going to Perros for a day or two." Raoul checked his watch. "I'd better get going soon. Hey, Phil, have you seen that Victorian Pickup Lines book you gave me lying around anywhere?"

The vicomte arrived in Perros that night. "Gosh," he mused, "it's great to be back in my childhood hangout. Sure brings back a lot of memories. In fact, I think I feel another flashback coming on…"

Little Christine stood crying on the beach, one hand pressed swooningly to her forehead. "Help! Oh, somebody help! My scarf blew away in the wind and I'm way too weak to go get it myself!"

She was about to yell for Superman, when --

"No, wait, we already did that part." Raoul hastily rifled through his brain for some new memories. "Ah, here we go…"

_Little Raoul came over to Little Christine's house every day. He was supposed to be getting lessons on the violin from her father, but that didn't last long. Little Raoul just didn't understand what use music would be to him when he grew up and sailed for the North Pole. He preferred to spend his free time studying more practical things like trigonometry, astronomy, and elven toy factories._

_He and Little Christine also liked to go around the village, knocking on the locals' doors._

_"Hello," Little Christine would say. "Will you tell us a story?"_

_"Er…do I know you?" the villager would ask perplexedly._

_"A story," Little Raoul would repeat. "We're bored."_

_"So you're going door to door asking perfect strangers to tell you stories?"_

_"Hey, what else can we do? We're only kids, and TV hasn't been invented yet," Little Christine would defend._

_Finally, Little Raoul would end up pulling some of his many gold coins out of his pocket. "Here's ten_ _francs. **Now** will_ _you tell us a story?"_

_"Yes, sir!" the villager would reply smartly. "Would you like a lullaby with that?"_

_"Hey, Raoul, you know what would make this even better?" Little Christine suggested one day. "Maybe one day we could dress up in funny costumes and ask the people for candy instead of stories."_

_Eventually, Little Raoul would run out of money, and the children would have to go home and get Christine's father to tell them a story. The guy was an okay storyteller, but original characters weren't his strongest suit. His stories all involved a girl who bore a suspicious resemblance to Christine, and an invisible Angel of Music. Hey, cut the guy a break. He was in the grips of a fatal sickness by this point, and wasn't thinking very clearly._

_After a few years of this, Little Raoul and Little Christine went their separate ways. Not because they wanted to; it was just that once they were old enough to flirt, they suddenly lost the ability to talk to each other. Little Raoul could do was blush, and all Little Christine could do was giggle._

Raoul sighed sadly and burst into song. "_And they called it puppy love. Just because we're in our teens. Tell them all it isn't fair to take away my only dream. I_…oh, sorry. This is the novel version, isn't it?" He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "Those musical versions just have me so used to bursting into song…anyway, the point is that I miss Christine."

He walked into the local inn and Christine was there waiting for him. "Heya." She waved.

Raoul stared at her. "You, uh, don't seem really surprised to see me after all this time."

"My dead dad told me you were coming."

"Oh…erm…okay."


	4. IV

__

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, everybody! I didn't think anyone would actually read this :)

Christine and Raoul just stood there for a while, each waiting for the other to say something, tapping their feet nervously.

After two and a half long hours of this, it was Raoul who finally broke the silence. "OhgirlIloveyouwillyoumarryme?" he blurted at warp speed.

Christine burst out laughing again. "Get a grip, buddy."

Raoul looked hurt. "Hey, I was serious."

"I didn't bring you here to babble garbled marriage proposals at me."

"Well, what the hell _did_ you bring me here for? Because I've been standing around for two and a half hours waiting for you to tell me!"

"Uh…well…I…" Christine shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. "Er… um, I-I don't remember."

"That is without a doubt the lamest, most pathetic excuse for a lie I've ever heard in my life. You know, I heard you talking to your little boyfriend in your dressing room the other night."

She was visibly startled. "You heard him? You were eavesdropping, weren't you?" Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Hey, were you the one who chopped my mannequin into a million pieces?"

"Well, it was dark and I couldn't see well enough to--hey!" Raoul folded his arms stubbornly. "Don't change the subject. This isn't about me or how many things I chopped into a million pieces that night. This is about you and your secret boyfriend!"

"What exactly did you hear?"

"What are you asking me for? You heard the words in person, without having them muffled by that pesky door!"

__

"Just tell me, already!" She grabbed his lapels and shook him violently.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Raoul warned. "I'm still kind of queasy from that milkshake binge, and this is only making it worse."

"All right, all right!" She released him. "Now talk!"

"Well," he began, staggering dizzily for a moment, "he was saying some awfully familiar stuff about you loving him every waking moment, and you were telling him you had just given him your soul."

Christine's face went white. "Eep! I-I-I gotta go!" She raced upstairs, running over two unfortunate little old ladies on the way up.

The vicomte shrugged helplessly. "Must be a female thing."

Dejected, and unable to find an open place that served milkshakes, Raoul decided to take a stroll over to the graveyard. He didn't have much chance to pine, though, because a few minutes after he arrived, someone snuck up behind him and clamped a hand over his mouth.

Raoul was on his feet in a split second. He wheeled around, grabbed his attacker by the arm, and punched them in the head.

"Ow! Raoul, what are you doing?" Christine struggled to keep her balance, rubbing her injured head gingerly.

A horrified Raoul caught her in his arms just before she keeled over. "Are you okay? Honeybear, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry! I thought you were a mugger!"

"Do I look like a mugger!"

"Hey, you snuck up on me in deserted graveyard in the middle of the night and tried to smother me! What's a guy supposed to think?"

"I just wanted to talk to you. Do you remember when we were little and Daddy used to tell us about that invisible Angel of Music?"

"Yeah. I had a flashback scene about it and everything."

"Well, while he was on his deathbed, he promised me he'd send me the Angel of Music when he was in heaven."

"Yeah? What's your point? He also said that a bunch of fairy dwarves come to this graveyard and have dances every night."

"Okay, so maybe he did have a…vivid imagination…but he was right about the Angel of Music thing, at least. I know, because he's already come to visit me."

A beat. "Oh. Okay." Christine had had these little episodes before, and Raoul had always found that when she didn't have her medication with her, it was best just to play along.

"You mean you believe me?"

"Sure, Honeybear. If you say so."

"I'm serious! Remember when you heard the man's voice in my dressing room? It was really the angel's voice."

"Okay, we have a new winner. _This_ is now the lamest, most pathetic excuse for a lie I've ever heard in my life."

"I'm telling the truth, you rat!"

"You're really serious about this, aren't you?"

"For the umpteenth time, yes! So, what do you think?"

For a long moment, his fear of offending the woman he loved battled with his fear of the criminally insane. "I…I…I think we need to find an all-night pharmacy and get your prescription refilled."

Christine burst into tears. "Fine, then! See if I ever try to confide in you again! I knew I should have just listened to my invisible friend! He told me never to trust anyone but him!" With that, she ran off, still wailing.

Raoul stared after her, looking shell-shocked. "Gosh. There wasn't anything in that book of Philippe's about how to handle this sort of thing. Just the same, I probably ought to follow her and make sure she gets home okay. Poor girl doesn't seem any too stable right now."

Raoul followed Christine through the graveyard, until she suddenly stopped and began to dance to some mysterious, disembodied music. It was a song her father had often played for them, and it seemed to be coming from a heap of bones. After a few minutes of this, Christine walked to the gate as though in a trance. Raoul was about to run after her. He knew she wouldn't want to talk to him, but after hearing a heap of old bones sing, he was pretty sure he needed to borrow some of her pills.

Before he could call for her to wait up, though, a guy with a skull for a face popped up from behind the heap of bones, and began to bombard Raoul with flaming skulls shot from a grenade launcher. "_My girlfriend's not crazy_!" thundered the mysterious voice from the opera house. "_She's just eccentric! SO BACK OFF!"_

Raoul kept trying to ask who the skeleton-man was and what he wanted, but every time he opened his mouth, it wound up full of flaming skull. Finally, the poor vicomte just gave up and let the skulls batter him into blissful unconsciousness.

Back at the opera house, Moncharmin and Richard were still trying to get to the bottom of the Opera Ghost mystery.

"I still say it's probably just a harmless prank, Richard," Moncharmin insisted while they were spending the night in the theater, staking out Box Five. Rather bored, he zipped up his sleeping back and began to smear avocado mask on his face.

"Just go back to drawing in your diary, and leave running the opera house to me," snapped Richard, peering through a pair of binoculars.

"Lighten up, will you?" Moncharmin rolled his eyes. "Honestly, sometimes I don't even know why--AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHH!"

Richard smacked his partner upside the head. "Don't blow our cover! God, I think you've been spending too much time around those ridiculous little ballet girls!"

"They're not ridiculous. They're my friends and they understand me! But we've got bigger fish to fry right now. Look up at Box Five."

Richard glanced back up at the Phantom's private box, then paled and dropped his binoculars with a loud thump. "AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHH! The ghost is up there!" Sure enough, a dark, shadowy figure was milling around in the box.

"I told you! We're all gonna die!" Moncharmin jumped into his partner's arms. "Hold me!"

"Only if you hold me!"

They sat there for a while, clutching each other and shaking with terror, until a guy with a camera appeared in one of the windows and began snapping photos of them. "All right!" cheered the photographer. "Front page material for sure! The editor's going to flip when he gets a look at these!" He darted away in hurry, laughing triumphantly.

The managers abruptly released each other at though they had been burned. Moncharmin groaned. "Oh, man, how am I gonna explain this to Jennifer?"'

Richard went around and slammed all the windows shut, his face almost blue with fury. "That's it! This ghost is toast!"

"What are we gonna do with him?"

"Well, we're taking back his box, for starters."

Meanwhile, the shadowy figure had made his way down from the box and tapped Moncharmin on the shoulder. They were surprised to discover that it wasn't the Opera Ghost after all, but a vampire to whom he bore slight resemblance.

"Excuse me, good messieurs?" the vampire ventured. "The Opera Ghost is out on business. I'm his good friend Von Krolock; he asked me to keep an eye on the place while he was gone, and give you this note if there was any trouble."

"Oh. Uh, thanks."

"My pleasure." The vampire whistled and waved at a second dark figure in the box. "Come on, Quasimodo. We've got to get the mess from the party cleaned up before Erik gets back and totally has a cow."

The Hunchback of Notre Dame frowned uncomprehendingly.

The vampire glared. "Sure, sure, you can't understand me because you're deaf. Tell me, why exactly does your deafness come and go, only popping up when there's work to be done?"

"Oh, just shut up…" The two gothic monsters disappeared into the shadows.

Richard cleared his throat nervously. "Okay, whatever. Now read the note."

Moncharmin opened it up. "Let's see…"

__

Dear Richard and Moncharmin,

You're really starting to get on my nerves. So, unless you want to find yourselves lying in a graveyard watching the fairy dwarves dance, you'd better shut your worthless mouths and meet the following list of demands:

1. I want my box back, like, yesterday.

2. I want you to give that hot…I mean **talented **Christine Daae the lead role tonight. I'll take care of that cow Carlotta…hehehehehe…

3. Re-hire my buddy Mme. Giry. She may be a weirdo, but she's easy to kick around

4. GIVE ME MY FREAKING MONEY

5. I also want that cute little Mephistopheles bobble-head doll on Richard's desk

Or else!

--Your pal,

O.G.

Richard stamped his foot stubbornly. "My bobble-head doll? No way! Man, I hate running a haunted opera! It's nothing like the career profile said!"

Mercier poked his head in the door. "Excuse me, gentlemen, but the groom wants to talk to you."

"Groom? I didn't know anyone was getting married. Ooh, I love weddings!" Moncharmin reached for his diary.

"No, no, I mean the guy who takes care of the twelve horses in the stable."

"Horses? What the hell does a theater need twelve horses for?"

"When the crowds get restless, we bring them up onstage and have them count for the audience," the groom explained.

"Oh. Well, what's the problem, then?"

"The Opera Ghost swiped Cesar. He was our best animal, too! He could count all the way up to twenty!"

"GRRR! Not him again!" Richard groaned. "Moncharmin, give the man some money for a new horse. I've got to go call Ghostbusters."


	5. V

Before M. Richard had a chance to make the call, Mme. Giry popped into the room holding another bright red letter. "Hi, guys. My buddy the Opera Ghost told me I was re-hired."

"Grrr…" M. Richard hissed. His face was bright purple, and he was starting to froth at the mouth. Had this been an animated version, there would have already been steam coming out of his ears.

Mme. Giry patted him hesitantly on the shoulder and held out a small red ball. "Here, monsieur, I think you need to borrow my stress ball for a while."

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHH!" Richard roared furiously, picking her up, lifting her over his head, and throwing her through a window.

Utterly stunned, she got on her feet, snuck back to the window, and beckoned to M. Moncharmin. "Psst, come here," she whispered.

Moncharmin edged back over to the window, peering at her between the few shards of glass left in the frame. "What?"

"I think your partner has some anger management issues. My brother went through the same thing. Here, I have a pamphlet that might help him." She slipped a small booklet into his hand.

Across town, La Carlotta was sitting down at the breakfast table, pouring herself a bowl of Alpha-Bits. After she turned around to take her toaster strudels out and ice them, she noticed that something was different about her cereal. Someone had arranged the sugar-coated letters so that they spelled out the following message:

__

Call in sck tonight, or I'll hve to commit some srt of unspekably horribl atrocity against you.

P.S.: Plese accept my apolgy for the atrocious spelling of this messag. Ths cereal has an appalling shortage of vowels.

And another funny thing about it was that someone had stolen all of the marshmallow pieces from the bowl.

Carlotta was furious. "Who is responsible for this? Ooh, I'll bet it's that little brat Christine Daae! She's probably upset about all those times I've treated her like garbage, slandered her reputation, and tried to destroy her career. Sheesh, she's so hypersensitive!"

The diva ignored the warning, then ate it, then took a walk down to Seat Fillers Incorporated. "All right," she told the man at the front desk. "Here's the scoop. I'm La Carlotta, from the Palais Garnier."

"You work at the Palais Garnier? Really?" The clerk's eyes lit up. "Say, do you think you could do me a favor?" He reached into a desk drawer and pulled out his autograph book.

Carlotta smirked arrogantly. "Well, I suppose just this once…"

"Could you get me that brilliant Christine Daae's autograph?" he finished.

Carlotta snatched the book and smacked him across the face with it. "Now you listen to me! I need a bunch of screaming fans in the audience to watch me sing tonight so that the new managers will think…uh, I mean, so they'll _know_ that I'm better than that little brat Christine."

"Okay." He whistled to one of his employees in the back room. "La Carlotta needs a couple hundred seat fillers at the opera tonight. Round up as many of our men as you can find by then. Oh, and tell them that I'll give a twenty-franc bonus to the man who gets me Christine Daae's autograph while he's there."

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHH!" screamed Carlotta as she stomped out of the office.

Down at the opera house, while preparing for her performance, Carlotta began to get hungry. So, she decided to order herself a pizza, despite the fact that she was Spanish and not Italian in this version. When it arrived, she was surprised to discover that someone had spelled out the following message in sausage and mushrooms:

__

Trust me, you really don't want to sing that role tonight

Carlotta rolled her eyes. "Like that's going to scare me off." She examined the pizza-gram more closely. "Hey, somebody picked all the pepperoni off this thing!"

When she stepped out onstage that night, Messieurs Richard and Monchamin were out in the audience along with the hundreds of seat fillers she had ordered, Richard periodically checking his partner's hair for more letters.

After the fifth or sixth time, M. Moncharmin began to get annoyed and batted Richard's hands away. "Will you give that a rest, already!"

"I'm sorry, I'm just slightly apprehensive about that whole opera ghost thing."

"Well, it's your own fault! It was your idea to blatantly ignore his list of demands. You didn't give him the money, or the box, you tossed Mme. Giry through the window instead of giving her back her job, you gave Christine's role to Carlotta, and you're carrying your Mephistopheles bobble-head doll in your pocket where he can't get at it. We'll be lucky if he doesn't blow the whole place up in our faces!" Moncharmin sighed wearily. "You can bet I'll be writing some unflattering stuff about you in my diary tonight."

"Hey, this is no time for us to be bickering. We've got bigger problems to deal with. The Parisian Enquirer just published a wedding announcement for us, for God's sake! Not to mention the fact that our substitute diva is apparently leading a conspiracy against our regular diva."

"Christine Daae? The sweet, innocent little Swedish orphan girl? How could she lead anything against anyone?"

"I dunno." Richard shrugged. "Maybe the Comte de Chagny over there is helping her out. The guy seems to like Christine. He was gushing so much over her the other night I almost thought she was having some kind of sleazy affair with him. Then I realized that job was taken." He indicated Sorelli sitting next to Count Philippe. They were handcuffed together either again or still.

Count Philippe noticed their eyes on him and glared defensively. "I accidentally swallowed the key, all right?" He turned to Sorelli with an annoyed look. "Jeez, you'd think they'd never seen a nobleman handcuffed to a ballerina before."

"Yeah. We usually get that at least twice a night around here." Sorelli waved her hand at the managers dismissively. "They're new. They just don't understand the opera biz."

"Uh…right." Moncharmin cleared his throat awkwardly, searching desperately for any excuse to change the subject. "So, who's the pale, sickly looking kid sitting on Philippe's other side?"

Raoul was deeply offended when he overheard that. "Hey, now, you'd look a little off too, if you'd just been attacked by a singing skeleton man and bombarded half to death by a barrage of flaming skulls."

Count Philippe gently patted his little brother on the head. "Right. Listen, sport, maybe you ought to postpone sailing to the North Pole for just a little while. The salt air might not be too good for your brain while you're in this…state."

"I'm not crazy!"

"Could have fooled me," Sorelli muttered.

Philippe leaned over to whisper in her ear. "It's not his fault. It's that horrible little Christine Daae girl he's taken up with. He went to see her a couple of days ago and came home with some nasty head injuries and a mouthful of second-degree burns. We're still not entirely sure what she did to him."

"She dumped me," Raoul explained glumly. "And, as if that wasn't bad enough, she went and sent me a Dear Jean letter after she did it, just to rub it in."

Carlotta's poor seat fillers didn't seem to be having a very good night, either. Carlotta's performance wasn't bad, but they were all impatient to get autographs from that brilliant Christine Daae. But, since they were getting paid, they obediently applauded and screamed Carlotta's name every five minutes, held up banners with her picture on them every ten, and started The Wave every fifteen.

Only a song or two into the performance, something happened to Carlotta's voice, and she began uncontrollably croaking like a toad. The poor seat fillers weren't sure what to do when their watches told them it was time to start screaming and applauding again. Not wanting to risk a pay cut, they looked at each other, shrugged, and began to cheer wildly, ignoring the strange looks the real audience members gave them.

M. Richard tugged at his collar nervously. "Uh-oh."

"_Damn right!" _ the Opera Ghost's voice roared all around them. "_What part of 'or else' do you two morons not understand!" _And with that, the ghost tore down the chandelier, dropping it on the head of Mme. Giry's replacement.

"Don't blame me," the poor woman mumbled as she lay dying. "I was only a temp."

"Oh." The ghost's voice echoed through the theater, sounding a little embarrassed this time. "My bad."

Mme. Giry poked her head in the door. "I take it I'm re-hired again?"

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHH!" Richard began to kick and punch the nearest wall, sputtering unintelligibly and sounding an awful lot like a Tazmanian devil.

Mme. Giry looked sternly at Moncharmin. "You didn't give him the pamphlet yet, did you?"

The next day, Raoul went down to the managers' office to see if they knew where he could find Christine. He rapped softly on the door, and heard two startled voices shrieking on the other side, followed by some loud thumping, then total silence. The vicomte waited patiently for a few minutes, then got fed up and tried opening the door himself. The doorknob was locked, though, and they had never taught lock picking at boot camp. Raoul pounded impatiently on the door. "Open up in there!"

"Wh-wh-who is it?" Moncharmin's voice inquired shakily.

"Just me, Raoul de Chagny."

"Don't listen to him!" the vicomte heard M. Richard hiss. It's probably just you-know-who with his voice disguised!"

Moncharmin gasped. "Lord Voldemort? Here?"

"_I was talking about the Opera Ghost, you insufferable idiot_!" Richard roared. "Ugh, just open the damned door!"

The door swung open, revealing Messieurs Richard and Moncharmin heavily armored in construction helmets, safety pads, and hockey masks. Richard was wielding a golf club, and Moncharmin was clutching a tennis racket. The office was filled with booby traps, but Raoul didn't have much time to examine them. The second the door was open, Moncharmin reached out, seized him by the collar, yanked him inside, and slammed it shut. Then he locked the doorknob, slid the bolt shut, fastened the chain tightly, and reinforced them with two sets of padlocks and chains.

Raoul glanced uneasily from one manager to the other. "Uh, is everything okay around here?"

"Of course! Fine! Just peachy-keen!" Moncharmin squeaked.

"Everything is completely and totally normal!" Richard announced, a little more loudly than was necessary.

"Are you sure? There's something weird about this office, and…hey, what happened to that cute little bobble-head doll you used to have on your desk?"

"That? He gave it away to--"

Richard elbowed his partner sharply. "To…the, uh…Goodwill store! Yes, that's it. But never mind that now. What do you want?"

"Well, I'm looking for Christine Daae. She sent me a Dear Jean letter the other day that led me to believe she might be in danger."

"Christine Daae? Uh oh."

"Maybe you should come back some other time, like tomorrow, or next year, or some time after we've retired."

"Why?"

"She can't talk to you right now. She's uh…help me out here, Moncharmin."

"Sick!" Moncharmin supplied at the exact moment Richard blurted out, "washing her hair!"

"Huh?" Raoul regarded them curiously. "Wait a second, are you guys trying to get rid of me?"

"N-no!" Richard insisted at the exact moment Moncharmin exclaimed, "Yes!"

"_What_?"

"We can't explain," Moncharmin apologized.

"Oh, just get rid of him before her other boyfriend comes and drops a piece of furniture on our heads!" Richard whistled for Mme. Giry.

She entered the office, wearing a luxurious fur coat and several strings of pearls draped around her neck. "Yes, monsieur?"

Richard gave her a nervous, tight-lipped smile. "Mme. Giry, dear, if it's not too much trouble, do you think you could find the time to escort the Vicomte off the premises?"

"Of course, monsieur. Will there be anything else? I'm getting kind of bored just sitting around trying to find ways to spend all the raises you've been giving me."

"Well, we can't have that! Take the rest of the day off and go find something fun to do!" Richard handed her his wallet. "Here, have a blast!" He shoved them both out of the door, and they could hear the many locks clicking shut behind them.

Raoul looked to Mme. Giry, as though hoping for some sort of explanation. She just smiled and thumbed idly through M. Richard's wallet. "Gotta love that Phantom."

Raoul backed away from the box-keeper warily, eventually backing clear down the hall and out of the opera house. "This place is full of nutters! I wonder if there's a gas leak somewhere in there? Or maybe they've fumigated recently." Afraid that the effects might start to damage his concussed brain, he decided to go look for Christine at her foster mom's house instead.

Christine's foster mom, Mamma Valerius, was old, ill, and usually tanked out on painkillers, so she wasn't much help. When Raoul appeared in her doorway, her face lit up. "Wow! Enjolras from Les Miserables, here in my house! Oh my gosh, this is so cool! Can you introduce me to Javert?"

"Uh, no, Mme. Valerius. It's just me, Raoul de Chagny." He closed the door behind him.

"Oh. What are you doing here, honey?"

"I'm looking for Christine. Do you know where she is?"

"Yeah. She's with the Angel of Music. And if you're trying to track her down so you can babble more marriage proposals, don't bother. The Angel of Music doesn't want her marrying, dating, touching, looking at, talking to, or going within five hundred feet of anyone but him."

"Oh, lord, not you too," groaned Raoul.

"No, really. He's been giving her lessons in her dressing room at the Opera house for three months now."

"For the love of--that's not the Angel of Music! That's just her secret boyfriend, the singing skeleton man!" And he was off like a shot.

Mamma Valerius clucked her tongue sadly. "And they call me crazy!" She popped another pill into her mouth, and her eyes immediately glazed over. "Mmm, pretty colors."

Raoul ran home, went straight to the icebox, and pulled out his pitcher of leftover milkshakes from a few days earlier. Philippe, the severed chain from a pair of handcuffs still dangling from his wrist, swung an arm around his brother's shoulders. "Women troubles again, huh sport?"

Raoul heaped his glass with whipped cream and took a swig. "That cheating tramp! I can't believe she threw me over for a singing skeleton man!

Philippe coughed nervously. "Uh, sure. Really terrible of her. Listen, sport, maybe you ought to go take a walk in the park tonight. Get some fresh air, maybe clear your head out a little."

"No. I'm not in the mood," Raoul replied sullenly. "Could you hand me the chocolate syrup and that little sprinkle shaker over there?"

"Would you be in the mood if I told you that some of my friends saw your little girlfriend and her other dude hanging out in that park the other night?"

Raoul poured his milkshake into a sports bottle and bolted off toward the park. "I'll be back later!"


	6. VI

After concealing himself in the bushes in the park, hoping to catch Christine and her secret boyfriend unawares, he discovered the hedges weren't half as comfortable as they looked. In fact, they were full of nasty thorns and several very aggressive wasps. He stuck it out for about an hour, but when one of the wasps flew up his nose, it was the last straw. Sneezing wildly, he stumbled out of the bush and flagged down a cab.

"Once around the park," he mumbled, slumping down in the seat and peeking covertly over the edge of the window.

He rode around for another couple of hours, and was about ready to give up, go home, put some ointment on his wasp stings, and get some shut-eye. However, as he was leaning out the window to get the driver's attention, he saw Christine's face in the window of a passing carriage.

"Christine!" Raoul shouted. He pounded on the wall of the cab. "Driver, follow that carriage!"

"Jiyajbe'. Tlhingan Hol Dajatlh'a' ?" the apparently monolingual cabbie replied uncomprehendingly.

Raoul smacked himself in the forehead. He had learned several foreign languages in school, but had never thought he would need to know Klingon. "Okay, okay, then just stop here!"

"Nuq?" The cabbie scratched his forehead, perplexed.

"I'm not having a very good day, here." Out of options, Raoul jumped out the window and began to run after Christine's carriage. "Honeybear, wait up! Just talk to me! I can change! Is the hair? I'll cut it! I'll even give up my dreams of discovering Santa's workshop and get a desk job! Just please take me back!"

After about a quarter of a mile, the viscount tripped over an inconveniently placed rock, fell on his face, and skidded to a stop. Christine's mysterious carriage rolled right past him without so much as slowing down, and he banged his head against the cobblestones in defeat.

Covered in mud, scratches, and beestings, Raoul trudged home, crawled up the stairs, and fell into bed. The servants came in the next morning to wake him up, and were greeted with a battered, miserable, unconscious heap. They tried poking him with a broom and dumping ice water over his head, but he didn't wake up until one of the servants leaned down and whispered in his ear. "Hey, boss, there's a singing skeleton man outside your window."

The viscount was awake in a flash. "What? Where!"

"Relax, we just wanted to wake you up so we could give you this note."

Raoul read through the letter anxiously.

Dear Honeybear, it said.

Meet me at the masked ball at the Opera tomorrow. Wear a white domino costume and keep your face covered up unless you want a certain Angel of Music to come and rip it off.

--Love and kisses,

Christine

Raoul massaged his temples tiredly. "Dang, that is one fickle girl."

But he showed up at the masquerade ball, wearing a white mask, a white cape, white shoes, white socks, a white vest, a white coat, with white buttons, white gloves, a white hood, white belt, and white shoelaces. "Ugh, this had better be worth it. I feel like a dork. Not only does this sissy costume have lace all over it, but they're overplaying the symbolism here to death."

He was getting ready to duck out, go home, and come back in a Batman costume like all the other guys were wearing, when a mysterious figure appeared on the stairs. He was dressed in bright red from head to toe, with a death's head mask on his face, and a cape printed with the words, "Red Death coming through, kindly keep your paws off."

"The singing skeleton man!" Raoul smashed a glass case on the wall and pulled out yet another of those handy-dandy fire axes. "I'll teach him to steal my girlfriend and get me sent to a psychiatrist!" But before he could attack, a girl in a black domino costume grabbed him by the belt, dragged him into a nearby dressing room, shoved him into a closet, then jumped in after him and barred the door shut.

"Are you out of your pretty blond head?" the girl hissed.

"Christine? Is that you?" He felt around in the dark for Christine or whoever it was.

"Ow! Yes, now please get your finger out of my eye!"

"Well, maybe if you hadn't stuffed me in a closet I'd be able to see what I was doing."

"What did you expect me to do, just watch the guy I love get torn into dog meat by the Red Death out there?"

Raoul's heart leapt. "You love me? Really?" Then he glared into the darkness. "Hey, now, just what makes you so sure _I'd _get torn into dog meat?"

"In answer to the second question, duh, he already pummeled you into a fine paste the other day with that skull-bazooka of his. And as for the first question, yep. Sure thing."

"Well, you've got a funny way of showing your love, running around with the singing skeleton man out there!" Raoul snapped.

"What! How _dare _you make such a valid point!" Christine stomped out of the closet indignantly. "You know, I _was _going to tell you a big juicy secret, but now you can forget it."

Raoul smacked himself in the forehead. "Nuts! That didn't go well. I'd better consult the book about this." He felt around in his pocket for A Thousand and One Pickup Lines for the Awkward Victorian Nobleman, but discovered that it was missing. Realizing that he must have dropped it near Christine's dressing room during the first little fire ax mishap, he marched down to the dressing room to look for it. He found the book lying on top of the pile of splinters that had once been the poor dressmaker's dummy, and pocketed it.

Raoul was about to head home and brush up on "Chapter Four; Apologies, Flattery, and Groveling", when he heard footsteps in the hall. He jumped into the closet, as that seemed to be a tradition around here.

Christine walked into the room and knocked on her mirror. "Erik, are you there? I'm ready."

"Sorry I'm late, baby," replied the disembodied voice from the graveyard. "One of those ballet girls thought I was a nobleman because of my spiffy new outfit and tried to handcuff herself to me. Or maybe it was just another one of those 'phangirls'. Never mind that now, though. Let's jam."

They began to sing together. Or rather, Erik began to sing, while Christine danced around in a freaky hypnotic trance. Meanwhile, Raoul had found a secret panel in the back of the closet and tumbled through the floor and into the managers' office. The place was still booby-trapped, and he landed in the middle of a snare. Dangling from the ceiling by one ankle, the dazed vicomte mumbled, "What just happened, here?"

It wasn't until the next day, after the managers had discovered him and cut him down, that he was able to track down Christine. He found her at home, adjusting her foster mom's meds.

"Look, Enjy!" Mamma Valerius called out as he walked through the door. "The Angel of Music brought Christine back."

Christine fidgeted nervously. "You know there's no such thing as the Angel of Music, Mom. Here, quick, have some more pills."

"She's right. The angel's actually just some ordinary wacko living in her mirror."

"Don't listen to him, Mom. He's obviously insane."

Mamma Valerius ignored her adopted daughter's protests. "If that adorable revolutionary Enjolras says you're in danger, I'm sure he knows what he's talking about."

Raoul coughed. "Ahem. Right."

An exasperated Christine poked Raoul in the chest. "Look here, buster, you've got no right to be getting up in my face like this. I'm an independent woman and I don't let any man kick me around like some little slave girl except my husband."

"Like the guy who gave you that wedding ring you're wearing?"

"Yes, exactly like--shut up! Shut _up_!"

At the sight of the wedding band on Christine's finger, Mamma Valerius perked up. She had been waiting for years to get Christine married and out of the house so that the girl wouldn't be able to control her daily intake of medication. Now that a potential husband had finally come along, she wasn't about to let anybody spoil it, even someone as dreamy as Enjolras. "If she wants to marry some weirdo who lives in her mirror, that's her business. Now, either sing me that delightful "Do You Hear the People Sing" song or get out of my house!"

Raoul shook Christine by the shoulders. "Honeybear, this is serious! This 'Erik' guy is stalking you! There are hotlines for this sort of thing if you want to get away from him."

"_He's _stalking me? Who listened at my door? Who chased my carriage down the street? Who wrote me five gazillion letters after I'd repeatedly told him to get lost?"

Raoul blushed guiltily. "I, uh, kinda hid in your closet last night, too."

She grabbed the Victorian Book of Pickup Lines from under his arm and whacked him over the head with it. "You idiot! Are you looking to get yourself killed?"

"Maybe. I've been in a rather melodramatic mood these past few days."

Christine wearily tossed the book back to him. "Honeybear, just do yourself a favor and mind your business, okay? I'll see you around."

Raoul bowed politely, left the house, and flipped through his book to "Chapter Seven; Getting Past Husbands, Fiancés, and Restraining Orders."

The next day the vicomte went to see Christine at the Opera. The book had told him that the key to overcoming accusations of stalking was to refrain from screaming, yelling, and threatening to kill your competition, so he decided to try discussing a different subject. "Yep, I'm finally going to live out my lifelong dream of going to the North Pole to start a new life among Santa's elves."

"I'm so happy for you, Raoul," Christine gushed with a smile. "Do you think you could send me back a pair of those funny little pointy shoes they wear? They've always looked so comfortable to me."

"Sure. You know, I'm really going to miss you, Christine."

"I'll miss you too, Raoul."

Before the words were even out of her mouth, Raoul had sunk to his knees and pulled a diamond ring out of his pocket. "Well, you wouldn't have to miss me if we got married! Pretty please? With sugar on top and nuts and cherries and chocolate chips and--"

"What part of 'no' do you not understand, Honeybear?"

"--and hot fudge and sprinkles and whipped cream and--"

"Well…I love you very much, and that does sound awfully yummy. Okay, I'll make you a deal. We can pretend to be engaged for the next month, until you leave for the Pole. We'll have some fun, and since it's only temporary, I should be able to convince Erik not to brutally slaughter you."

Raoul was about to protest that he didn't need a girl to protect him from the singing skeleton man, but remembered what the book had said about that sort of thing, and decided to consult it for some advice. In Appendix III, "Marriage Proposals and Related Topics", he found his answer:

Item Number 227. In the event that she just wants to be temporarily engaged until you leave for the North Pole--

Just play along with her little game for the time being. By the time you leave, if you play your cards right, she'll have forgotten all about the Phantom of the Opera and end up running away to Santa's Workshop with you.

"Wow," he mused, "this book knows everything. Okay, Christine, it's a deal."

"Yay!" She grabbed his hand. "Come on, let's go find some fun engaged people stuff to do."


	7. VII

They were both sickeningly, nauseatingly happy for the next few days. I'd go into detail, but I wouldn't want to give anyone a cavity. But they were having such a blast together that after a week, Raoul decided to give up his dreams of having his own gingerbread mansion at the North Pole to stay in Paris with Christine. She tried to point out that the deal had been that he would leave after a month was up, but he was too busy picking out their china pattern to listen.

When he went over to her house the next evening to see if she was up for a game of Frisbee, there was no answer. Concerned, he went inside to see if her foster mom knew where she had gone.

"Morning, Monsieur Enjolras. How's the revolt coming?" Mamma Valerius greeted.

Over the past few days, Raoul had given up trying to correct her. "Should be ready any day now, Madame Valerius. I was just wondering if you'd seen Christine?"

"She's gone off with that Erik again."

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Raoul cried.

"Sorry, Enjy, but it's probably for the best. Now I get as much medication as I want, Erik gets Christine, and you can go back to being married to the Republic. Everyone's happy. Now excuse me while I kiss the sky." She poured a bottle full of tranquilizers in her mouth and promptly conked out.

Raoul shook her vigorously. "Mme. Valerius, wait! I still have more questions!"

But all she would do was snore and hum something about "the blood of angry men". Finally the viscount gave up and decided to check for Christine down at the opera house. By the time he found her, she was wearing the wedding ring again, not to mention the fact that someone had stamped the words "Erik's girl, kindly keep your paws off" on her face.

"Christine?" Raoul piped up.

"Honeybear!" Christine grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the closet with her again.

Raoul cringed. "Maybe I should have mentioned this earlier, but I've always been a little claustrophobic…"

"Raoul…"

"Er, what I meant to say was, I'm so sorry Honeybear, I'll be a good boy and go away to the ends of the earth after my month's up, just pleeeeeeeease take me back! Please? I'll give you a milkshake!"

"Chocolate?"

"Sure."

"Okay!"

And they spent the next couple of days playing tag and begging for stories just like in the old days, and being disgustingly adorable yet again. Raoul was so happy that he worked up the strength to throw away all his milkshakes.

One day, while playing hide-and-seek in the opera house, the viscount tripped over the entrance to the labyrinthine cellars of the opera and clapped his hands excitedly. "Wow! Christine, I just found the coolest hiding place ever!"

"_No_!" Christine screamed in pure terror. "_That's where Erik lives! He's got all kinds of freaky trapdoors of doom and a bunch of terrifying torture devices in there! He controls everything underground with an iron fist and if you set foot down there you'll surely die a horrific, excruciating death!"_

"Oh, so Erik lives down there?"

"What?" Christine scrunched up her forehead. "Whatever gave you that idea, Raoul?"

"B-but you just said--"

"Honestly, I don't know where you get these crazy ideas sometimes, Honeybear. Now let's go play Duck, Duck, Goose."

"No, I want to discuss your stalker!"

Christine's eyes darted around apprehensively. "Ex-nay on the alker-stay while we're standing on the apdoor-tray, okay?"

"Huh?"

"Oh, just come with me." She took his hand and led him up to the roof, pursued by an incorporeal shadowy figure who was either Erik or Hollowman.

"Request permission to speak, dear?" Raoul said once they were safely on the roof.

"Granted."

"Now, why do you keep going back to this guy who stalks you and threatens anyone who competes for your affections with death?"

"Because you're sweet and thoughtful and you give me lots of milkshakes."

"I was talking about _Erik._"

"Oh, why didn't you say so? I don't know. I guess because if I dump him he'll cry."

"Is that all? I can cry! I cry all the time!" Raoul began to work up some tears, but it was no use.

"Nice try, Raoul, but I can't just run away to elope with you tonight on two seconds' notice and break the already fragile heart of a man who worships the ground I walk on."

"Fair enough. How about tomorrow night?"

"Okay! In that case, I'd better go buy myself a wedding dress. Oh, and some lingerie for our wedding night!"

At that point, Erik, or Hollowman, or whoever it was let out a cry of agony. "AAAAAAAGGGHHH! NO! _This can't be happening! Why, God, why!"_

Christine glanced over her shoulder. "What was that?"

"That was me! I, uh, stubbed my toe," Raoul replied.

"Oh, good. For a minute I thought it might be Erik again. He's one scary dude, especially that awful face of his…"

Erik/Hollowman screamed with anguish. "NOOOOOOOOOOOO! _How could you! Oh, please, God in Heaven, just let me die!"_

Christine gave Raoul a funny look.

"I-I-I got a splinter that time," the viscount fibbed. "I don't have a real high tolerance for pain. Now, why don't you tell me about Erik?"

"Well, the first time I saw him, I didn't actually see him because he was hiding in my mirror. He just kept hiding in my mirror and singing at me. He's a really good singer, so of course I naturally assumed he was the Angel of Music my dad promised to send me."

"That doesn't make sense. There are lots of good singers who are perfectly mortal"

"Hey, he's a really really really _really_ good singer. Really."

"Okay…"

"Plus he was invisible just like the angel in the story. Anyway, I asked him if he was the Angel of Music, and he said, 'I can be anybody you want me to be, hot stuff.' I took that as a yes.

"So the Angel of Music asked if he could come and give me singing lessons every day. I said, 'Sure, why not? I'm a Swedish orphan without any friends, it ain't like I've got anything better to do.' The invisible Angel and I got to be buddies, and eventually I got rid of all my imaginary invisible friends so I could spend more time with him."

"Oh, so _that's _why you don't have Timmy the Talking Tree-Frog anymore!"

"Yeah. So the Angel of Music taught me how to sing really really well, and I started to get a little freaked out. I was such a crappy singer before he got hold of me, I thought he might be using witchcraft to doctor my voice up. Anyway, I saw you in the audience one night, looking all fine and cute, and went skipping back to my dressing room to doodle your name in my diary. Then the angel got all jealous and went away, growling something about insolent boys and slaves of fashion."

"Harsh."

"The next time I talked to him, he made me promise to ignore you and treat you like garbage for the rest of my life. I promised I would."

"Gee, thank you so much for standing up for our great love," Raoul retorted sarcastically.

"Hey, I didn't see any point in chasing after you. Opera performers don't marry noblemen. The best I could hope for was some sleazy affair where we snuck around and wound up handcuffed together all the time. At any rate, I got to fill in for Carlotta after she had some kind of mysterious accident involving the Opera Ghost and a large bowl of ice cream she wouldn't give him."

"You mean the night you started crying and fainting onstage for no apparent reason?" Raoul asked.

Christine shot him a glare. "Hey, I'm a girl and this is the Victorian Period. I don't need a reason to faint. So the voice got all jealous again when you came to see me. That's why I treated you like dirt. I actually thought your flashback scene was really cute."

"Then what happened?"

"Well, you already know about my little jaunt to Perros and the whole incident with the skeleton man…"

"Yeah," Raoul muttered, rubbing a large bump on his head.

Then, that night chandelier fell on that unfortunate temp, I got to worrying that the Angel might have been hurt in the crash. Oh, I know he was supposed to be immortal, but I still figured he might need a Band-Aid or something. So I went back to my dressing room to look for him. He was there waiting for me, and somehow managed to pull me right through the mirror on the wall."

"Uh-oh. Christine, have you been taking your pills?

"Yes," snapped Christine.

"Have you been getting into your mom's pills?"

"No!"

"Okay, if you say so. I guess a guy who gets beaten up by a singing skeleton man with a skull bazooka shouldn't try to judge another person's sanity."

"Thank you. I was pulled into a dark black tunnel with Cesar the Counting Horse and some bony guy wearing a mask and cape like something out of a bad dime novel. He put me up on Cesar and started leading me through the tunnel.

"I told the guy that if he was looking for the costume party, he had the wrong night. He got all ticked off and said, 'Don't you get it? I'm the Phantom of the Opera.'

"Then I said, 'That's funny, you sound just like the Angel of Music.'

"So he said, 'Read between the lines, Christine!' and that was when it hit me. The Phantom of the Opera had killed the Angel of Music, and I started crying. The Opera Ghost just started hitting his head against the wall and grumbling, 'What have I gotten myself into?'

"He led me through the tunnels for about a half hour. Finally, I realized that we were going in circles, and I asked him if he was lost. He got really insulted and said, 'No, dear, just a shortcut.' I told him not to be ashamed if he needed to consult a map or ask for directions, but he insisted that he knew where he was going. At this point, I began to suspect he might be a man.

A few hours later, we got to the edge of a lake, and he lifted me into a boat and paddled us across. Unfortunately, he paddled us to the wrong side, but after two more tries, he got it right, and carried me out of the boat and into a drawing room. There, he fell to his knees and confessed, 'Christine, I'm not really an angel, or a ghost, or a vampire, or a mummy, or a werewolf, or any other supernatural type of thing. My name is Erik, and I'm a man.'

"'It figures,' I said."

"Hey," Raoul interjected. "Don't stereotype. I'm a man, and I never get lost."

"Sure you don't, Honeybear."

"Hey, I studied navigation in military school for four years."

"Well, why didn't you use your knowledge that time we were walking to the other side of the village to beg for stories and somehow wound up in Italy?"

"Okay, so maybe _one _time…"

"And then there was that time when we were playing hide and seek, and you hid in the closet and couldn't find your way out…"

"Fine, two times, then, but that's still…

"And that time you accidentally wandered into those tar pits…"

"Ugh. I'm still finding bits of tar in my hair. All right, you've made your point."

"And the time that you--"

"Hey, lay off! Jeez, you're supposed to love me, remember?"

Christine rolled her eyes. "What's the big deal? Erik never responded to criticism this way."

"Oh, so maybe you'd rather be with him? Huh!"

"Just settle down. You're having milkshake withdrawal."

"Well, would you?"

"God, no, he gives me the creeps. Although I do feel sorry for him. And it is kind of flattering how he's always kissing my shoes and stuff."

"Okay, sorry I interrupted you. You were saying…?"

"He told me he loved me and I had nothing to fear from him unless I tried to take off his mask, in which case he'd be forced to slowly and painfully torture me to death. He sang me to sleep, and when I woke up, I was lying in a very tastefully decorated room and there was a note on my pillow.

'Dear Cuddlebunny,' it began.

Don't worry, I just stepped out to go buy us some breakfast. I tried to fix you some waffles, but I accidentally set them on fire. Long story. Don't run off, I'll be back in few, and besides, I've taken the liberty of Super-Gluing your door shut.

-Love and kisses,

Erik

When he got back, he led me out of my bedroom, into a dining room that smelled very strongly of smoke. After breakfast, he gave me the grand tour.

'This is my bedroom, and that's my coffin, and this is my paper clip collection, and that is my secret cloning laboratory, and this is my pipe organ,' he said.

'Uh…cool, I guess,' I said. 'Say, what's this music on top of the organ?'

'NO!' Erik snatched the music out of my hands and stuffed it down his pants. 'Hands off! That's my Forbidden Operatic Masterpiece of Doom!'

'Your Forbidden Operatic Masterpiece of Doom?'

'Yes. I call it Don Juan Triumphant for short. I've been pouring my heart and soul into it for twenty years now, and once it's perfect, I'll bury it in the ground where no one will ever be able to hear it.'

'But...why?'

'My buddy the Daroga says it's because I have a fear of failure.' Then he tried to cover that up by adding, 'Oh, but mostly because, uh…the music in it is…d-dangerous! That's it. Yes, I'm a real bad boy! Does that appeal to you?'

'No. I usually go for the cute blond choir-boy types,' I answered.

'Well, maybe you'll change you mind after I've kept you locked up in my dungeon for a week.'

'_What! _Erik, it's no wonder you have to resort to kidnapping and impersonating supernatural creatures to get a date if this is how you handle all your girlfriends!'

'I don't have any other girlfriends.'

'I can see why!'

'There, there, don't get your shorts in a knot. I'm not going to try and hit on you or anything. We'll just study music the whole time.'

'Study? Give me a break, Erik, that's the planet's oldest excuse to make out.'

'Settle down. Here, maybe a song will calm your nerves.' And Erik began to sing.

'Ninety nine bottles of beer on the wall

Ninety nine bottles of beer!

Take one down

And pass it around

Ninety eight bottles of beer on the wall…'

By the time the forty-second bottle of beer rolled around, I had a death wish, so, remembering Erik's threat from earlier, I went up and ripped off his mask. Ew! It was totally gross! I was scared out of my wits. I'd been expecting him to be ugly in a more of a sexy, Gerard Butler kind of way. No such luck"

"AAAAAAAAGGGHHH! My heart is shattering! Oh, I wish I'd never been born!" sobbed Erik/Hollowman.

Christine glanced over her shoulder. "Was that you again, Raoul?"

"Yeah, sorry, um, I accidentally bit my tongue. Please, continue."

"Oh, it was horrible! He looked just like those gossipy ballet girls always said, with no nose, and hardly any hair, and his eyes are like black holes, and he's all bones like a skeleton.

"Then he started crying and screaming. 'Damn, girl, what part of 'hands off my mask' do you not understand! Oh, this is horrible! What woman could love this face?'

'Well, I don't find it particularly attractive,' I confessed, 'but you might try some of those screaming phangirls banging on your door…'

He was too busy bawling to listen, though. "How could you do this to me? Oh, just for that, I'm going to make you listen to the Forbidden Operatic Masterpiece of Doom!' So he sat down at his organ and began to perform it for me.

'_This is the song that doesn't end! _

Yes, it goes on and on my friend

Some people started singing it not knowing what it was

And they'll continue singing it forever just because

This is the song that doesn't end!

Yes, it goes on and on my friend

Some people started singing it not knowing what it was…'

I screamed in horror. This music really _was_ dangerous. After an hour or two of the Forbidden Operatic Masterpiece of Doom, I was willing to do anything to make him stop, so I went over to him and told him that his gross face wasn't important, and I loved him anyway. He was so happy he spent the next week or two following me around the cellars kissing my shoes.

He seemed so pitiful that I felt guilty for a while. You know, aboutplotting to leave him alone in the basement, to die of heartbreak without so much as a goodbye…but that doesn't matter now. I've got to make a trip down to the mall and see if Victoria's Secret is still open. Maybe I'll go ask Monsieur Moncharmin. He knows the mall like the back of his hand."

"Okay. See you tomorrow, Honeybear." Raoul stood up to leave, but froze in his tracks when he saw a mysterious shadowy figure crossing his path. "Oh my gosh, it's the Phantom! Darn it, where's one of those fire axes when you need them?"

"No, that's not Erik. That's just one of his mysterious, shadow-lurking buddies." She waved. "Hey, Daroga."

The Persian, tottering drunkenly, gave her a friendly smile. "Hey, Chrissy. You missed a swell party the other night. It was great. Quasimodo filled the underground lake with green Jell-o, then we all got drunk and Frankenstein stuffed me into the sofa."

"Sorry, Daroga. I had other plans."

"Your loss. Later!"

Raoul headed home to rest up for the big day. However, as he hopped into bed and set his clock radio for seven, a pair of disembodied eyes appeared gleaming in the darkness outside his window. Luckily, the vicomte had foreseen that there might be trouble, and was well prepared for an attack. He reached into the top drawer of his nightstand and pulled out a custom-made flaming skull bazooka he had bought himself a few days earlier.

"Heh heh, not so tough now, are you?" He began to fire skull after flaming skull through his window, shattering the pane and setting the curtains on fire in the process. The smoke alarms alerted Count Philippe, and he ran into his brother's room.

"Sport, what the hell are you doing?"

"I'm pulverizing the singing skeleton man."

"Oh, God, not another singing skeleton man!"

"No, it's the same one."

"Grrrr! This is a disaster! That Christine Daae's gone and turned you into a raving loon, just like our other brother!"

"Other brother? We don't have any other brother."

"You never met him. He went nuts just like you, so Mom and Dad had to lock him up in the attic for his own safety."

"Well that's not gonna happen to me! I'm getting out of here tomorrow, and Christine and I are going to start a new life shoeing reindeer at the North Pole." Raoul dragged a suitcase out of the closet and began packing

"I thought you were going to build toys."

"That was before I remembered that I spent my entire childhood in military school, and don't even know what a toy is supposed to look like."

The next night, Raoul was sitting in the audience at the opera house watching Christine give her last performance before they skipped the country. Everyone was whispering gossip about the two of them, and Moncharmin and the ballet rats kept passing notes back and forth and giggling.

Christine was giving one hell of a performance, and everything was going great until without warning, the entire Opera House was plunged into darkness.

"DUN! DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN!" A blast of oddly familiar organ music echoed through the theater. Then the lights came back on, and Christine had mysteriously vanished.

Raoul smacked himself in the forehead. "D'oh!"


	8. VIII

The opera house erupted into chaos, everybody trying to guess what had happened to Christine.

"I guess she got impatient and ran off with the vicomte a few minutes early," said Moncharmin. "Or maybe that Opera Ghost fella kidnapped her."

"No, isn't it obvious? The real perpetrators are Quasimodo and his evil sidekick Bigfoot!" Firmin declared.

"Naw, they're still at home sleeping it off," Little Meg Giry clarified. "She must have been abducted by aliens."

Then Mercier burst in. "Hey, somebody just offed all the guys who work the lights. I'm calling the cops."

"Ooh, this is way more exciting than opera!" one of the audience members exclaimed.

"Yeah," one of his friends agreed. "I wonder if I can get them to do this next Saturday. I've got a date, and this scary murder/kidnapping business would make a great excuse to put my arm around her."

"I'm buying season tickets!"

M. Richard's face brightened. "Well, this may be damnably inconvenient, but at least it'll be good for business, huh Moncharmin? Moncharmin?"

M. Moncharmin was no longer sitting beside him. He had locked himself into the office and begun crab-kicking around in circles. When he saw Richard, he took a flying leap over his desk and shook his partner by the lapels. "Quick, Richard, gimme a safety pin! No, wait, make that a roll of duct tape! No, make that both! And some Super-Glue! I'm…uh…starting a craft project!"

M. Mercier whacked M. Richard upside the head. "This is all your fault. I told you he'd start having withdrawal symptoms if you took that stupid diary away."

"RAAAAAAGGGGHHH! I am surrounded by idiots!" Richard roared, beating mercilessly on an innocent marble statue in his frustration. His hands were bleeding profusely, but he didn't seem to notice.

Mercier sighed. "That's it, I'm out of here."

After using a few handy calming techniques he'd picked up from Mme. Giry's pamphlet, Richard got ahold of himself enough to ask what Moncharmin really wanted with pins, duct tape, and Super-Glue.

"Well," said Moncharmin. "It's time for us to pay the ghost off again tonight, and you remember what happened last time."

"Yeah," Richard grumbled bitterly. "We gave him an envelope with twenty thousand francs, and he snuck it back to us full of Monopoly money."

"Well, I was just thinking, if we duct-tape ourselves to the envelope, we won't be able to help noticing when he switches them because it'll be really painful, just like pulling off a Band-Aid."

"Sounds good. Better put the tape on."

"_I'm _not covering myself with duct tape. Jennifer just dumped me again; I've got enough pain in my life."

"Oh, all right," sighed Richard. "I'll do it."

Moncharmin stared dumbly at his partner. "You took that surprisingly well."

He opened his palm, revealing Mme. Giry's little red anti-stress ball. "It's this ball Mme. Giry gave me. It really has a calming effect."

As if on cue, Mme. Giry strolled into the room, wearing an enormous diamond solitaire around her neck and a gold ring on every finger. "Evening, gentlemen. The Opera Ghost asked me to give you this letter." She began to read it aloud.

Dear Richard and Moncharmin,

GIVE ME MY FREAKING MONEY. Again.

--Your pal,

O.G.

"_Grrr_…" snarled Richard, mercilessly squeezing the anti-stress ball.

"Oh," added the box-keeper. "He also wanted me to give you this to put the money in." She held out a self-addressed envelope that read:

Opera Ghost, c/o Mme. Giry

Gothic Baddies, Inc.

OP Box 0005

Paris, France

Moncharmin looked her over thoughtfully. "What makes you want to run errands for some moody extortionist, anyway?"

Mme. Giry shrugged. "Well, there is the matter of all the raises he keeps getting me, of course, but what really clinched the deal was when he told me my daughter Meg was going to be made an Empress."

"He predicts the future now?"

"Oh, he's a jack of all trades. Fortune teller, composer, architect, extortionist, seismologist, illusionist, broadcast technician, acupuncturist, sculptor, freight inspector, accountant…"

"All right, we get the picture…"

Mme. Giry hadn't finished. "…inventor, orthodontist, certified veterinary assistant, systems analyst, hydrologist, choreographer, air traffic controller, regional collections supervisor for Gothic Baddies, Inc…"

Richard was ready to explode. "I'd pick her up and stuff her in a closet somewhere, but I haven't the time." So he whistled loudly. "Hey, Mercier, get in here and stuff her in a closet."

M. Mercier grudgingly picked up the still-babbling box-keeper and tossed her over his shoulder. "All right, but I'd better be getting time-and-a-half for this."

They set to work attaching the note to Richard with half a dozen safety pins, nine staples, some Super-Glue, and so much duct tape he looked like a very shiny mummy. Once that was done, they headed up to Box Five, shut off all the lights, and waited for the ghost.

Moncharmin shivered. "I guess this might not be the best time to mention that I'm scared of the dark?"

"Well, tough luck, because there's no way I'm hugging you after what happened last time."

They sat and waited, but after a few minutes, M. Moncharmin could stand no more. "I've got to at least have a night light! Richard, turn on the lamp so I can go look for it."

Wringing the life out of the stress ball, Richard lit the lamp, and was shocked to discover that the money was gone. The pins were still in place, and the many layers of duct tape lay in a heap at his feet. "What?" He was astonished. "How did he past that tape and Super-Glue?"

Moncharmin picked up an empty bottle that had been discarded near his feet and examined the label. "That clever fiend! He used Dissolve-It!"

Out in the chaos surrounding the kidnapping, the chorus master, Gabriel, turned to the secretary Remy. "Well, the managers both seem to be, ahem, mentally incapacitated. Guess that leaves us in charge."

"Cool!" Remy exclaimed. "Let's give ourselves a raise!"

"Later. Right now we need to figure out what's up with the managers. They're acting slightly weirder than usual."

"_They're_ insane? M. Mercier's the one who just stuffed poor Mme. Giry into the closet."

"I can't say I blame him. She was starting to get on everyone's nerves. Kept singing this stupid song called 'Erik, the Not-So-Friendly Ghost'."

Meanwhile, Raoul was fighting the urge to go grab himself an extra large chocolate milkshake. "I can't believe Hollowman stole my woman _again_! This isn't funny anymore! I've got to save her!" He ran up and tapped Gabriel on the shoulder. "Do you guys know where I could find Mlle. Daae?"

"Duh, no! The story would be over if we did. But you might try checking with the cops."

"Oh, very well." Raoul impatiently marched over to the commissary of police. "Excuse me, sir, I'm looking for Christine Daae."

The commissary groaned. "I know that voice. You're that stupid kid who kept making all those prank 911 calls about the 'singing skeleton man'. Just stay away from us!"

Raoul tried to protest, but was interrupted when Mercier walked in and let out a yelp at the sight of the commissary. "Gah! The cops are here!" He shoved a key into Gabriel's hands. "Quick, man, they're on to us. Go get Giry out of the closet while they're busy with the crazy nobleman. And act natural!"

Raoul chased after the commissary. "No, wait! I have some important information about Mlle. Daae. She's been kidnapped by her invisible friend, the Angel of Music!"

The commissary burst out laughing. "This isn't exactly an appropriate time for jokes kid, but I've got to admit that was a good one."

Raoul followed the commissary up to the managers' office. "Seriously, the Angel of Music and the singing skeleton are really the same person, also known as the Opera Ghost, but his friends call him Erik. He lives in a freaky maze of trapdoors he built in the basement, on an island in a lake full of green Jello, with his friend Cesar the Counting Horse."

"Uh…huh…"

The viscount sighed. "Man, now I know how Christine felt when I made that insensitive comment about her pills."

The managers' ears perked up. "Did you just say "Opera Ghost?"

"I'm sorry, gentlemen, I'll have this madman thrown out at once--" the commissary began.

"No!" Richard exclaimed. "This man has valuable information about the ghost! Why aren't you taking notes?"

"Oh, no, not you too!"

Raoul stamped his foot angrily. "You police are worse than useless! I'm going to go try Ghostbusters." He stormed out of the room, running smack into a large band of gothic monsters traipsing toward the exit. A shady-looking Persian man in a Middle-Eastern ensemble that looked like it belonged on a monkey music box led the gang.

"Oh, sorry…" the viscount began to apologize. "Hey, wait a minute! You're the Phantom's friend, aren't you?"

"Yep. I'm his old fraternity brother from Mazenderan A&M, back in Persia." The Persian pointed to several of the gothic baddies at his side. "This is his good pal Bigfoot, his college roomie Quasimodo, his business partner Frankenstein, his cousin Von Krolock, his childhood chum Dracula, and his pet, the Loch Ness Monster."

The enormous amphibian trotting between Dracula and Quasimodo dropped the stick he had been holding on the Persian's head. The Daroga cursed. "Ow! For the last time, Nessie, I'll play fetch with you after we get to the park! Hey, Frank, give him another Monster Munchie. Maybe that'll keep him quiet."

But Frankenstein had already devoured the entire bag of monster treats and was now chewing on the bag with a guilty look. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"What are you all doing here?" Raoul demanded.

"Well, we were planning on having another party at Erik's place tonight." Dracula smiled proudly, displaying his bloodstained fangs in a disconcerting manner. "We wanted to celebrate, you see. Gothic Baddies Inc. just beat out its biggest competitor, Gallant Goodguys Megacorp, for the fifth straight year!"

"Yeah, we had a big bash all planned out, but when we arrived, Erik had a necktie hung on the doorknob. That means he's got a girl in there." Quasimodo explained. "So we decided to leave the two of them alone and go Goofy Golfing instead."

"That's my fianceé Christine he's got with him, you fools!" Raoul cried.

The Persian groaned. "He kidnapped her again? But he promised me he wouldn't! He pinky-swore!"

"Oh, my poor Honeybear!" Raoul moaned, pacing relentlessly. "What if he's strangling the life out of her even as we speak? What if he's ruthlessly torturing her? Oh my gosh, what if she gets the Stockholm Syndrome! I've got to hurry!"

The vicomte broke into a run and promptly tripped over his own untied shoelaces. "Rats! I'm so clumsy lately! I'd be fine if I had a milkshake to steady my nerves, but I gave my beloved Christine my word that I'd go cold turkey." He sighed, tying the laces neatly. "It's going to be a long night."

The Persian gently patted Raoul on the head. "Uh-huh. Listen, kid, maybe I ought to come along on this little rescue mission. I know a lot of Erik's weaknesses, and you're in no condition to be facing a homicidal mastermind alone."

Raoul brightened. "Thanks, man, I really appreciate your help. So, since we're going to be going off on an adventure and risking life and limb together, I guess we ought to properly introduce ourselves. My name's Raoul de Chagny, what's yours?"

"I-I, uh, I don't have one. Just call me 'Daroga' or 'the Persian'."

"No name? That doesn't make good sense."

"I don't have a name, I said! End of topic!" the Persian barked.

"Are you sure?" Raoul persisted skeptically. "I could have sworn I heard some of your friends calling you 'Nadir' earlier."

"_That was the **Kay** version! This is supposed to be **Leroux**! Kay isn't out of copyright yet__, so shut up before somebody sues_!" Nad…uh, that is, the Persian hissed. "Now that's settled, let's get moving."

He led Raoul back to Christine's dressing room and began to feel the walls.

"Are you checking for some kind of magic switch?"

"No, I just love this new wallpaper. It has a fascinating texture. I think it might be imported." He stroked the wallpaper lovingly.

Raoul gave him a funny look.

"Wallpaper's a passion of mine. I run the Wallpaper, Carpet and Tile Division of Gothic Baddies, Inc.," the Persian explained, tearing away a sample of the wallpaper to study back at product development headquarters.

"Look, I'm sorry to interrupt," Raoul spoke up, "but shouldn't we be trying to find Erik and Christine?"

"Oh, yes. So sorry, I'm just not myself when I'm around wallpaper." The Daroga whipped a pair of pistols out of his pockets andtossed one to Raoul. Aiming carefully, he fired the other one at the mirror.

The bullet bounced off the glass, rebounding and striking Raoul squarely in the chest. Luckily, there was no blood and the vicomte seemed to be unharmed.

"Woah, how did you do that?" The Persian exclaimed.

Raoul unbuttoned his coat and shirt, revealing a bullet-proof vest. "I guess it's a good thing the singing skeleton man has had me so paranoid these past couple of days, huh?"

The Persian examined the mirror with a frown. "Looks like our masked friend bulletproofed the glass. I guess that only leaves us one option."

"Oh, I get what you're saying!" Raoul grabbed a nearby fire ax off the wall and smashed the mirror into a fine powder. "Ah, good old fire-axes. Is there anything they don't do?"

Raoul and Nad…uh, the Persian…crept quietly down the pitch-black tunnel behind the mirror. Then they crept down a narrow side tunnel, which led them back to the first. Then they crept through a short passageway that brought them back into Christine's dressing room through the closet. Then they went back through the shattered mirror, and around a kind of loop that took them back through the narrow side tunnel to the entrance again. Then they reluctantly agreed to consult a map, and were off to the Phantom's lair.


	9. IX

"All right, kid, follow me and keep your hand at the level of your eyes," the Persian instructed as he lead Raoul through the Phantom's maze of tunnels.

Raoul obediently lifted his arm. "Okay. How come?"

"There's no time to explain."

They strolled through the seemingly endless maze of tunnels for what seemed like hours in dead silence. After a while, Raoul got impatient and tapped the Persian on the shoulder. "You know, you could have explained to me twenty times by now."

"I'm _trying _to keep up my air of mystery here, _okay_?"

"But it doesn't make any--"

"One more word and so help me Allah, I'll go home and let you rescue your own damsel."

"As you wish, Nad…" At the Persian's vicious glare, he corrected himself in mid-sentence. "As you wish, Anonymous-Foreign-Guy-With-Some-Vague-Connection-to-Erik."

"_Thank _you." The Persian pressed his ear to the wall. "Hey, listen. I hear voices."

The viscount pressed his ear to the wall. Sure enough, it sounded like the commissary on the other side.

"…Hmm," Raoul heard him say. "Looks like the guys who work the lights aren't dead after all. They're only drugged up. I guess the kidnapper got to them. Or maybe the opera was starting to bore them. Monsieur Richard, Monsieur Moncharmin, what do you think?"

"I think I'm getting out of here before the ghost feeds me my own limbs!" Richard's voice shouted.

"Right behind you, buddy!" yelped Moncharmin's voice.

The Persian rolled his eyes. "Whatever." Then he turned to look at Raoul. "Hey, I thought I told you to keep your hand in front of your eyes."

"My arm got tired. What's the big deal anyway? We're chasing a Phantom, not playing Simon Says."

"Shut up and come on. Like I said before, there's no time to explain." He took off down the tunnel again. "So, did you catch the game last night? I …" He paused, suddenly noticing a mysterious caped figure lurking in the shadows. "Uh-oh. Hit the deck, kid!" He flattened himself against the floor

Raoul obediently dropped to the ground. "What? What is it? Is that the Phantom?"

The strange figure made its way closer, and they could see that it had a body made of shadow and a head of fire. "I heard that! You know, Erik's not the only mysterious, shadowy figure around here. But does anybody around here care about that? Noooo!" The shadow paced restlessly. "All those stupid phangirls who come down here, always mistaking me for Erik and pledging their undying devotion. Then when they find out I'm not him, they're gone like a shot! Or worse, they'll follow me around trying to get me to tell them more stuff about their precious Erik! Well, I'm a person, and I have feelings just like anybody else!" He stormed off, leaving a trail of lava-like tears behind him.

Raoul raised an eyebrow quizzically. "What was that thing?"

"That was Bill. He's some kind of shadow monster." The Daroga shook his head wearily. "Erik accidentally conjured him up while playing Dungeons and Dragons with Dracula and me a few years back. He wanted to join Gothic Baddies, Inc., but he just didn't have the business sense, and that fiery head of his kept melting our office equipment, so we told him no. He's still a little bitter, as you can see. Erik tried to soften the blow by hiring him as a rat catcher, but Bill's still convinced he's management material being unfairly overlooked."

"Oh. That's rough." Raoul's ears perked up. "Hey, I think I hear water. The lake must be right around that corner." Raoul raced toward the lake. "I'm a-comin' Honeybear!"

The Persian grabbed hold of his collar and held him in place until his feet stopped flailing. "Hold it, kid. We're not getting to Erik's by swimming the lake. That's exactly what he expects. It'd be suicide. Plus the Jell-o would get us all sticky and probably turn our hair green. But don't worry. I know a fool-proof shortcut that will work perfectly."

"A shortcut?"

"Yes. I have an excellent sense of direction. Follow me."

"I have a feeling that if Christine were here, she'd have several less-than-ladylike words to say about this," said Raoul.

Two wrong turns and three false tunnels later, Raoul and the Persian finally arrived at the secret entrance to Erik's lair. Raoul frowned. "Hey. Isn't this the spot where they found Joseph Buquet's broken, mangled body?"

"Yeah." Nadir climbed inside and jumped down the passage.

"Call it superstition, but this feels like more foreshadowing to me," Raoul mumbled as he followed the Persian through. Leaping down the passage, he fell right into the Daroga's arms. Nadir abruptly dropped him with a dull thud.

Raoul rubbed his head, wincing. "Ow! Dang it, what was that for?"

"Sorry. I just don't want to end up getting slashed in some tabloid like those poor managers. "

"Oh." Raoul spotted a noose made out of catgut lying on the ground just under the passage. "Hey, a lasso!" He picked it up and began to twirl it with a flourish. "I've always loved rope tricks. Here, watch this one! I call it the Chagny Cyclone."

"Put that down!" The Persian snatched the lasso away. "This is not a toy! It is an instrument of unholy death! Show a little respect!"

"Spoilsport."

The Persian's eyes darkened as he looked around the room. "We've got bigger problems right now, kid." He indicated the walls around him.

Looking closely, Raoul could see that the walls were lined with all kinds of mirrors. "Cool, a fun house." He began to make faces at himself in the mirrors. "Hey, look at this one! It makes us look like dwarves. Hehehe!"

"This isn't a fun house, Raoul! This is a very serious situation, and…" The Daroga trailed off, watching his warped reflections with a chuckle. "Actually, I've got to admit this is kind of fun."

_"You're not supposed to be having fun, you insufferable imbeciles! You're trapped in my torture chamber! Now get down on your knees and quake with fear, damn it!"_ Erik's voice thundered from the other side of the wall.

Nad…uh, the Persian…later wrote down everything that happened after that in a manuscript of his own. And since I'm getting a serious case of writer's cramp, I'm just going to staple his document onto the back of mine and be done with it.

--Gaston Leroux

Erik had never let me or any of the other Gothic Baddie Gang into his house before. We'd always had to break in when he wasn't around. Needless to say, I had encountered several of his rather severe security devices in the past. The paint buckets he rigged up over all the doors, the snares surrounding his refrigerator, the camouflaged pit full of spikes right in front of the cabinet which held his paper clip collection. But I think that the creature in his lake topped them all.

I'll never forget my first run-in with it. It was just a day or two after I had heard Erik was living under the opera house, and I was going to track him down so I could convince him to leave. Our good friends Jekyll and Hyde had told me mere days before that they were in need of a third roomie. Or a second, depending on how you looked at it. The point was, they had a gorgeous penthouse right around the corner, with cheap rent, plenty of room, a tennis court, and a nice big swimming pool for Nessie. There was no need for Erik to be rotting away in some moldy catacomb under a theater.

I jumped into the lake and began to swim toward his house. I was halfway there, when the clawed hand of some horrendous creature grabbed me by the ankles and began to drag me underwater. Luckily, Erik was there to pull me out. "What are you doing, Daroga? You know what a terrible swimmer you are. Hell, you've almost drowned in bathtubs."

"Where I come from, there's so little water we have to fill our swimming pools with sand." I defended. "What _was _that thing?" I gasped, struggling for breath.

"That's the Siren. I found her in an exotic pet store and thought she'd be good company for Nessie." Erik explained. "But that's not important. What are you doing in Erik's lair? Erik didn't invite you. You may be Erik's friend and have saved Erik's life, but if you keep going behind Erik's back, Erik might flip out and go 'Hillside Strangler' on you."

"Don't try to change the subject. That thing could have killed someone, and you promised me you'd try to cut down to five murders a year. And stop talking about yourself in the third person. You sound like a caveman."

"Shove it."

"I didn't come here to bicker with you. I came here to find out if you're the one responsible for the big chandelier crash the other day."

"You should appreciate what I did. That chandelier didn't match the wallpaper at all."

"True enough, and it also clashed horribly with the carpet, but that's beside the point."

"Just trust me. I've really mellowed out these past few weeks."

"And why is that?"

"You know how you're always saying I need a girlfriend? Well, I found one. Her name is Christine and she loves me, so there!"

I couldn't imagine what kind of chick Erik could have met while moping around in a basement. "Is she blind?"

"No," snapped Erik.

"Is she inflatable?"

"No! Just back off! I'll see you at the Gothic Baddies Reunion '81 next week." And with that, he dove into the lake. "Nessie! Siren! Fetch my friend here some floaties and escort him to the other side of the lake."

I spent the next day or two spying on Erik and Christine. This wasn't as easy as it sounds, since there was this lovelorn nobleman hanging around trying to do the same thing, and I had to keep avoiding him. Still, I managed to catch a glimpse of Erik kidnapping Christine.

I went to see him a few days later, this time riding to his house on Nessie, who kept that creepy Siren away from me. "Erik," I said sternly, "don't you think you might be coming on a little too strong? Am I going to have to call your mom on you again?"

He glared at me, clenching his fists and began to huff and puff angrily. However, before he could threaten to blow my house down, I patted him on the back. "Listen, buddy, I'm just looking out for you. I mean, kidnapping a helpless girl to keep you company might seem like a good idea right now, but after a few months locked up in a dark basement, she might get cranky and stab you in your sleep."

"Don't worry, Daroga. I've planned a whole bunch of fun things to win her over. I'm going to sing her all kinds of neat campfire songs, and cook her my famous blackened chicken, and introduce her to all my bobble-head dolls. In a week or two, she'll be putty in my hands, and that's when I'll pop the question." Erik's eyes sparkled. "I've already written a song for our wedding." He blew on a pitch pipe and broke into song.

"Ring out the bells upon this day of days!

May all the angels of the Lord above

In jubilation sing their songs of praise

And crown this--"

I clamped a hand over his mouth. "All right, all right, I get the freaking picture. Look, I'll make you a deal. If she leaves and then comes back to you willingly, I'll stop trying to meddle in your unorthodox love life. Deal?"

"No prob. Christine and I are going to the masquerade ball tonight, after which, she'll be coming back to me through the mirror in her dressing room."

"Well," I agreed, "that's definitely iron-clad proof that she's with you willingly. I mean, it's not like she'd feel pressured into going back to you, even if she is going to be inside the theater which you control with an iron fist, with you standing right across the room the entire time. It's a deal."

So, I went to the ball, and Christine returned to Erik just like he said. "Well, what do you know?" I thought in amazement. "I guess there really _is_ a woman or two in the world who can be turned on by a mysterious masked bad boy with a brilliant mind and artistic soul. Huh. What's next? Chocolate-flavored milk?"

Then I, ahem, _overheard_ Christine talking to Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, saying something about how she couldn't go for milkshakes with him because "the singing skeleton man would fly into a jealous rage and kill him with his own drinking straw." It didn't take long for me to put two and two together, and I started to get worried.

When Christine was kidnapped during the opera that night, I grabbed the vicomte and set off for the lair. The viscount was a nice enough kid, but kind of a pest. He showed an unusual aversion to walking around with his hand in front eyes for no apparent reason, and kept politely asking me for an explanation. What's wrong with that guy, anyway?

The rest of the Gothic Baddie crew just got a look at what I've written thus far and started whacking me over the head. Apparently they're not going to let up until I write in an explanation, so here it goes.

Back in Persia while we were at Manzenderan A&M, Erik did a semester abroad in India. While he was there, he took up the sport of strangulation. He was dang good, too. Got to be team captain after only two months. He was so skilled, in fact, that the sultana wanted him to strangle for Persia in the Olympics. Then we realized the modern Olympics wouldn't be starting for another couple of decades. Oh well. The point is, if you keep your hand in front of your eyes, it's easy to get out of the noose when he slips it around your neck. I learned this the hard way during several drunken brawls at the frat house.

We snuck through the tunnels, and everything went fine until we took my short cut. Then we figured out where we were, and everything went fine again until we fell into Erik's torture chamber. It was lined with mirrors, which we tried to calm ourselves down with by making funny faces into them. We were just starting to forget our troubles, when we heard voices in the next room.

"All right, Christine," said Erik's voice. "Let me put it this way. If you don't marry me, I'm going to have to get ugly." Then a few seconds later. "Damn it! Let me rephrase that. If you don't marry me, I'm going to have to get, uh, murderous! Yeah! Murderous! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Erik, I know you've gone to a lot of trouble, but getting dragged off, tied up, and repeatedly threatened isn't my idea of a romantic proposal. Just a little advice; maybe with your next girlfriend, you should try writing 'Marry Me, Baby' on the scoreboard at a football game," Christine's voice answered.

"Aw, come on, marry me! We'd have tons of fun together. We wouldn't have to stay locked up in the basement here, if that's what's bothering you. My buddies Jekyll and Hyde told me their building is renting. I've even got a mask rigged up to make me look like a regular guy. We could have a perfectly normal life."

"Another little tidbit of advice, Erik; next time, maybe you should try moving above ground and acting normal _before_ you try to win the girl over."

"OH MY GOD! YOU DON'T LOVE MEEEEEE!" Erik bawled in horror.

"Wow, what was your first clue? I thought you said you were a genius."

Erik sounded deeply offended. "I am a genius. All the term papers I used to sell for extra money in college got A pluses. And I--oh, listen there! That little oven timer means there's someone in my torture chamber." He paused. "And using an oven timer is going to seem really ironic later. A joke only a genius could have thought up at random like that! See what a clever wit I am? Christine? Oh, stop playing hard to get, girl!"


	10. X

A few moments later, we heard the sound of Erik's footsteps heading for the door. "I'll be back in a minute. I'm going outside for a smoke. I hope you're happy, Christine! Nine years without a cigarette shot to Hell!"

The moment we heard the door slam, the vicomte began to pound on the wall. "Honeybear! Honeybear, are you in there?"

"Raoul? My beloved, is that you?"

"Yes! Don't worry, me and my nameless new friend are here now and we're going to bust you out of there just as soon as you bust us out of here."

"Bust you out? Oh, that'll be an interesting trick, considering the fact that _I'm tied to the !#$ wall!" _screamed Christine irritably.

"We're doing the best we can, here!" I replied defensively.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry. You'd be a little cranky too if you'd just been through what I have. Erik took me away from the man I love and locked me away in his dungeon. Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, he tried to force me to marry him. And to top it all off, I've got a splinter! That was the last straw! I tried to commit suicide by bashing my head against a wall, but I think he saw that coming, because all of the walls in this house are lined with rubber."

"Naw, that's not it," I clarified. "He spent a couple of years in an asylum, and thought the padded walls were comfy, so he's had a set installed in every place he's lived since."

"Never mind that. I think Erik's on his way back inside. You two have got to get out of here before he kills you!"

"Oh, so you still think he's gonna kill me, huh?" The vicomte sounded bitter. "Nice to know my girlfriend has such confidence in me."

"Oh, don't get all macho on me now, Raoul," snapped Christine.

I cleared my throat nervously. "Um, Monsieur le Vicomte, Mlle. Daae, this isn't really the best time for this…"

"This is just like you." Raoul growled. "Ever since we were children you've acted this way! It all started back when we were ten. We were playing at the beach when those bullies, the Beaumont twins, started knocking me around and threatening to steal our Frisbee. So then you came up to us and said, 'Oh, just give it to them Raoul. It's not worth the beating they'd give you.' And I--"

"RAAAAAAAGGGGGHHH!" Christine screamed. "What have I ever done to deserve this? I can't believe you and the wacko non-angel out there are my only choices!"

Fortunately, Erik came back in a few seconds later and spared me from having to listen to the rest of this conversation. "Christine, dear, are you okay? I was outside and I heard you screaming. Loudly."

Christine had apparently decided that laying on the charm would be her best bet. "My snuggly wuggly genius-kins, did you ever stop to think that I might be slightly distressed because you tied me up and left me alone in a dark basement?"

"Uh…of course I did. All part of my plan, yes." Erik tried to cover. "I was just trying to get you emotionally vulnerable so it would be easier to put the moves on you."

"Well then, Erik, my cute little cuddle bug, why don't you take the ropes off me and see if it's worked?"

Erik's voice hardened again. "I'm sorry, my love, but I'm going to have to ask you never to use the words 'cute' 'cuddly' and 'Erik' in the same sentence again."

"I'm so sorry, my…er…sexy, sinister hottie of a specter?"

Back in the torture chamber, the vicomte was trying valiantly to suppress a gag reflex. I just covered my ears and hummed softly, trying to shut out the whole conversation and pretend I was anywhere but here.

Fortunately, Erik was too busy giggling like a schoolgirl to pay us any attention. "Hehehe…okay. I'll untie you."

We heard Erik move closer to her and begin cutting through the ropes. Then Christine coughed nervously. "Uh, I don't mean to criticize, my homicidal hunk, but do you realize you're covered in green Jell-o?"

"Yeah, I know. While I was outside smoking, I noticed there were a bunch of old corpses floating in the lake, so I got the pool scoop and tried to fish them out. Didn't want them to get tangled up in the tin cans I've tied to our wedding gondola. Unfortunately, the pool scoop got stuck in the Jell-o and I fell in." There were a few slurping sounds as he licked the front of his shirt. "Mmm…Jell-o." His voice brightened considerably. "Say, Christine, since you're going to be my wife, does that mean you'll cook unburned food for me once we're married?"

"Um, sure, whatever you want." Christine mumbled, and we could hear the sound of keys jingling nearby.

"Oh, yes! Unburned food _every day_! This is like some sort of wonderful dream!" Then his voice lowered dangerously. "Hey, what are you doing with my keys?"

"Wh-what, these?" Christine tried to sound relaxed, but her voice trembled nervously. "I was, uh, just going to borrow your car! If we're going to get married, I'm going to need to pick up a few things. Flowers, a dress, that lingerie I ordered last night, and the rest of my medication. And you'll need a tux and some mask polish, not to mention--"

"Don't lie to me," Erik snarled.

"Okay, okay, I confess, I was trying to steal your key chain. I'm so sorry, my wraithlike Romeo, I just love those little springy key chains, and none of the stores seem to carry them anymore. I--"

"Wait a minute, I know what's going on here. You're trying to bust your little boyfriend out of my torture chamber, aren't you?"

"Torture chamber? You told me that was your hobby room. And that I couldn't go in because that was where you kept your unfinished model ships and you didn't want me stepping on one."

"All right, I was only half honest with you. My real hobby is torture, not model kits."

Christine screamed in horror.

"Hey, baby, don't take it so hard. At least I'm not a sports fan."

Christine raced to the little window in the torture chamber, then turned to Erik, raising her eyebrows. "_This_ is your big scary torture chamber? A room with a pretty little model forest and a bunch of mirrors on the walls? Where are all the racks, hooks, scourges and shackles? Where are all the dull, bloodstained knives?"

"I prefer to use more creative methods. You got a problem with that?" Erik challenged.

"N-n-no, of c-course not, my lethal loverboy."

"I'm sorry, darling, I can see I'm making you nervous. Here, why don't I show you one of my slightly less terrifying pastimes?"

There was some shuffling around outside, and I stifled a groan. "Oh, please, Allah," I prayed silently, "don't let him be getting out that stupid doll."

A few seconds later, I heard Christine's voice, sounding a bit perplexed. "Erik, is that a doll?"

"No!" Erik replied defensively. "It's a ventriloquist's dummy. His name's Herbert. Herbert, this is my main squeeze, Christine. Can you say 'hi' to her?"

"Hi, Christine," squeaked Erik in the high-pitched voice he had always used for Herbert.

"Oh…well…hello, Herbert," Christine replied hesitantly.

"So, Herb," Erik went on in his normal voice. "How are you feeling today?"

"No bad, but I'm getting a little dusty. I sure could use a coat of lemon-scented Pledge," Erik replied in his Herbert voice.

"There is no God," I sighed, crumpling miserably to the floor.

The vicomte stared from the window back to me, as though looking for some kind of explanation. I just shrugged. "This is what happens when a man lives underground for years at a time with only his pet sea monsters for company."

Erik spent the next several hours telling the same tired old jokes about termites and sawdust. The poor viscount and I were soon on the verge of insanity. Matters weren't helped by the intolerable heat that had begun to fill the chamber.

I knew what was happening, here. This torture chamber was an exact replica of one Erik had built for his end-of-term science project during our freshman year at Manzenderan A&M. It was a six-sided room, lined with mirrors, with a big iron tree in the corner. The mirrors were part of the heating system, which Erik used to slowly cook his victims to death. The tree had a noose hanging from it that you could use to commit suicide if you wanted a quick death (or just couldn't take any more of Erik's ventriloquist act). I had tried to point out how cliché the whole thing was, cooking his victims in a giant oven like some kind of fairytale villain, but he never was one to listen to constructive criticism.

"Erik?" Raoul and I heard Christine say. "Isn't this place getting awfully hot for a damp underground cave?"

"That's just because my torture chamber's getting all fired up." He clapped his hands excitedly. "Yep, I'm gonna barbeque myself some meddlers! And maybe toast some marshmallows, if I have time."

"NO!" shrieked Christine. "Erik, I beg you, please don't slow-cook the man I love and his nameless buddy!"

"As much as I love you, you can really be a drag sometimes." We heard her screaming as he dragged her out of the room.

I angrily kicked one of the iron trees, then swore lavishly as I rubbed my fractured toes. "Well, with Christine out of the picture, I guess we're going to have to bust ourselves out of here. You with me, Monsieur le Vicomte?"

But alas, the searing heat had become too much for Raoul de Chagny. He had fallen to the floor and begun to roll around the floor, giggling softly. "Hehehehe…That you, Phil? You look funny."

I shook his shoulders violently. "Monsieur le Vicomte!"

The viscount's head lolled dizzily from side. "Hehehe…nifty new hat, Phil. Can I try it on?" He began to tug at my turban and I angrily shoved his hands away.

"Meanie…" the vicomte mumbled incoherently. "Won't even share with your own brother." He sniffled. "I'm hot. Let's go down to the ice cream parlor and get milkshakes."

"Raoul!" I shouted, slapping him across the face. "I'm not Philippe, I'm…er, Anonymous-Foreign-Guy-With-Some-Vague-Connection-to-Erik, remember?"

Raoul's eyes slowly fluttered open. "Oh, right. Nadir. Heh, you look funny too." He turned to address his reflection. "And so do you, Monsieur Enjolras! Hehehehehe!"

It looked like I was on my own. I checked the floor and walls for secret doors, but it was no use. Meanwhile, Raoul de Chagny was looking through the iron forest. He let out an excited scream. "Quick, Daroga! Come here! Look what I've found!"

My heart leapt. "What? What? You found an exit?"

"Even better! I found the legendary Sunscreen Springs!" The vicomte crumpled to the ground and began to swim through an imaginary fountain full of sun-block. "Hop in, Daroga! It feels like SPF 30 at least!"

"Monsieur de Chagny, listen to me! There's nothing there, you're delirious!"

"_You're_ delirious!" Raoul fired back at me.

"Am not!"

"Are so!"

"Am not!"

"Are so!"

"Am not!"

"Are so!"

I opened my mouth to answer him again, but was distracted by several geysers popping up around me, spraying me with…raspberry lemonade? Uh oh. Well, now we were both done for. "That's it!" I screamed. "I've had all I can take! Hell can't possibly be any worse than this!" I ran toward the noose hanging across the room.

"Me first! Me first!" Raoul protested, running close behind me.

"You'll get your turn." I shoved him aside.

"Hey!" The heat had made him more grouchy than usual. "Don't go shoving me. I'm having a bad enough day as it is!" He tackled me.

We wrestled around on the ground for a few minutes, until the vicomte's shoelace caught on a loose nail and he called a time-out. "Stupid phantom," Raoul mumbled. "If he's gonna cook us to death, he could at least have the courtesy to keep his giant oven tidy. Daroga, could you give me a hand? This shoelace is really stuck."

I wearily fiddled with the knot. "This is hardly setting the mood for our tragic suicide, you know." With a mighty tug, I yanked the nail out of the floor, and a couple of boards popped free. We tumbled down out of the oven, into a cellar full of barrels labeled "Pierre's Instant Milkshakes."

Raoul let out a whoop of joy and began to pry one open. "Who-hoo! Somebody up there likes me!"

I stared at him. "What are you talking about? You've just been tortured to the brink of death, had the woman you love stolen from you, and been prevented from committing suicide by a mere fluke."

Raoul pointed to the label on the barrel. "But look. They're raspberry flavor." He pulled the lid off and groaned. "Aw nuts! These aren't milkshakes. They're full of lousy gunpowder!"

"Gah!" I jumped away from the barrels.

"Gah!" cried Raoul, the delirium finally starting to wear off. "Do you think he's gonna use this stuff to blow us all up when Christine dumps him?"

"Either that, or he's starting another of his stupid collections. But he usually likes to keep those in display cases in his living room. We're doomed!"

The vicomte's eyes scanned the room full of explosives. "You know what? Somehow, that torture chamber's looking really good right now."

We jumped back up into the giant oven, now pitch black, and heard a knock on the wall.

"Who's there?" I called

"Who d'you think?" Christine Daae answered.

"Honeybear!" the viscount cried.

"No time for chit-chat, my love," sobbed Christine dramatically. "In five minutes, Erik's going to kill me, you, himself, everyone in the theater, his mother, the Loch Ness Monster, and that guy down the street who sells pretzels out of a cart."

"We've got to stop him!" M. de Chagny insisted.

"It's no use," wailed Christine. "He's gone out for another cigarette break right now, but when he comes back, he'll kill everyone. Unless I agree to marry him. He showed me these two boxes, one with a scorpion, one with a grasshopper. If I turn the grasshopper, he'll take it as a no. If I turn the scorpion, he'll take it as a yes."

Once again, the vicomte looked to me for an explanation. "He collects bugs, too," I clarified.

"Honey, I'm home!" Erik's voice rang out, the door swinging open.

"Erik!" I shouted. "It's me, your nameless best pal! Why don't you let us out of your giant oven and call off this whole killing spree? Maybe we can still catch up with the guys and get in a few rounds of Goofy Golf--"

"Pop a cork in it, Anonymous-Foreign-Guy-With-Some-Vague-Connection-to-Me!" Erik sounded more than a little annoyed. "Dear God! I moved underground, and surrounded my home with a maze full of deadly traps, a giant lake, and two murderous monsters! What more do I have to do to finally get some privacy, go live in a submarine on the ocean floor?"

"What a grouch," muttered Raoul.

"Now, _as I was saying_," Erik said to Christine, "you can either marry me or I'll blow us all up."

"How romantic," I interjected.

"Shut up!" I could hear Erik striking a match to light the gunpowder. "That's it! You people are _soooo_ dead!"

"Erik! Don't do it, my dishy little demon! Look, I just turned the scorpion!"

The scorpion was apparently hooked up to some kind of pipe, because when she turned it, the room full of gunpowder flooded. The water rushed up into the torture chamber, and the vicomte began to splash around happily.

"Oh, I thought I'd never be cool again," he sighed. "This is heavenly, huh Daroga? Daroga?"

Sadly, I still hadn't gotten around to taking swimming lessons. I flailed helplessly. "AAAAAAGH! I'm drowning! Help me, Raoul!"

There was a long pause. "But Daroga, it's only two feet deep right now."

"AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHH!"

"All right, all right, I'm coming." The vicomte reluctantly waded over, grabbed my collar, and held my head up above the water. I was relieved, until another four feet of water gushed into the room.

"Uh, Honeybear? You can turn the water off now," M. de Chagny called anxiously. "H-H-Honeybear? Honey-MMMMMMMMMRRRRR!" His screams were muffled by the rising water, and the hand gripping my collar went limp. I started thrashing around in terror and hit my head on one of the iron trees' branches. My last coherent thought before I blacked out was that I should have just gone golfing and let Erik handle his own women troubles.


	11. XI

****

What? _That's_ the end of the narrative? What kind of stupid ending is that? Damn, you readers are gonna want me to write in some kind of clear-cut conclusion, aren't you? Oh, all right, but I'm upping this book's cost by fifty cents a copy.

--Gaston Leroux

After reading the Daroga's narrative, I felt gypped. I'd just paid five francs for a manuscript without a freaking ending! So, I marched myself down to his house and demanded my money's worth.

He explained that when he woke up after the whole torture chamber disaster, he was lying on a bed in Erik's place with a raging headache. "Errrrgh," he groaned into his pillow. "I must've drunk a whole keg last night." Then he caught sight of Raoul, passed out on a nearby couch. "Gah! Now I remember." He fumbled in his pocket, looking for his pistol. "Stay away from me, Erik! You'd better not forget I was captain of the wrestling team at Manzenderan A&M!"

"Oh, do settle down, Daroga," Erik chirped cheerfully, appearing in the doorway. "Christine, dear, get our guest here a spot of tea."

"Huh? You just tried to cook and drown me, and now you're offering me _tea_?"

"Oh, are you still hung up on that silly little torture and murder attempt? Do move on, Daroga. You're being childish." Christine came in and handed Erik a cup of tea. "Thank you, dear. Here, Daroga, drink this. Chamomile always has a calming effect on me."

The Persian looked to Christine questioningly. She didn't say a word, she just made a "cuckoo" gesture behind Erik's back and mouthed the words "mother issues".

"Now," Erik continued, "do you want to go back to sleep for a while, or do you think you feel up to sitting on the couch and playing board games for a while?"

"_Are you going even more insane than usual?" _I shrieked incredulously.

"Shh!" whispered Erik. "You'll wake the boy!" He gently draped a fuzzy yellow blankie over the sleeping vicomte. "Little fella's all worn out. No more staying up till midnight going swimming for him."

"Christine?" The Persian decided to try getting some answers out of the girl again, as Erik was obviously mad, drugged, or a little of both. But she was busy packing Erik's ventriloquist dummy Herbert into a large black box, which she was attaching heavy iron weights to. "Oh, I understand. If I had to marry Erik, the creepy puppet would definitely be the first thing to go."

"Talk to her again and I swear I'll rip your tongue out!" Erik snarled, so embarrassed even his mask seemed to be blushing.

The Persian sighed with relief. "Whew. There's our Erik. You had me worried for a minute."

"You should count yourself lucky. Christine talked me into taking you and the kid back up to the surface, but if you get on my nerves, let's just say you might meet with an unfortunate accident on the way up." Then Erik suddenly turned cheerful again, threw a blue blankie over the Persian, turned on a musical mobile decorated with sea creatures, and switched on a purple night light. "Sweet dreams, sleepyheads."

When he got back to the surface, the Persian did some asking around, and found out that Philippe de Chagny was dead. Apparently, his corpse had been found in the tunnels under the opera house, slathered in green Jell-o, with a pool scoop stuck on his head. It is said that the night he was killed, everyone in the opera house above heard his scream of, "_AAAAAAGGGHHH! The singing skeleton man! Raoul, I'm sorry I called you crazy! Olivier, I'm sorry I let Mom and Dad lock you in the attic_!"

The Persian, of course, tried to do the honest thing and go to the cops, but when he told them Philippe had been murdered by Phantom of the Opera and his pet sea monsters, all they did was give him some pills they'd confiscated in a drug raid earlier that day. So, hoping that someday someone would read it without bursting into uncontrollable laughter, the Persian sat down and wrote his unfinished manuscript.

Then a few days later, Erik popped in for a visit. "Hey, Daroga…. Missed me?"

"Not really. I've still got the third degree burns to remember you by."

"Such a …kidder!" Erik swung an arm around his friend's shoulders.

"Why do you keep talking like that? Is your asthma acting up again?"

"Yeah. I…ran all the…way here. And there's a…lot of pollen…in the…air today."

"How many times have I told you to take you inhaler with you when you know you're going to be exerting yourself?"

"I just forgot. Sue…me," panted Erik.

"What are you even doing here after you tried to kill me? Give me one reason why I shouldn't call the cops on you!"

"You're just…never…going to let this…whole attempted murder…thing slide…are you?"

"Never mind that now. What have you done with Raoul de Chagny and Christine Daae?"

Erik babbled on as if he hadn't heard. His ears had a tendency to get stuffy when he was exposed to too much pollen. "I came to tell you I'm going to die."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, rest assured, I'm crying on the inside. Now where are Christine and Raoul?"

Erik was still yammering. "I'm dying of love…and a severe, untreated heart disease…but mostly love!" Erik began to dance a jig, then started gasping for air and blacked out. Sighing, the Persian got one of the Phantom's spare inhalers from a closet and shoved it into his mouth. He came to after a minute. "Whew. Thanks, Daroga. That was a close one."

"Don't do that again." The Persian shuddered. "It's dangerous. Not to mention it's disturbing to watch the Phantom of the Opera dance that way. Even the musical had the sense not to show us that."

"Sorry."

"Now, if you're not going to tell me what you did you Christine and Raoul, will you at least show me where you left their mangled corpses so I can give them a proper burial?"

"I didn't kill them! I know my track record with these sort of things is pretty bad, but can you just hear me out?"

"Very well."

"Christine got a little upset with me when I started drowning you guys in my torture chamber, so she made me a proposition. If I let you and Raoul go, she promised she'd try not to kill herself. Eventually, we worked out a compromise. You got to leave, and Raoul got to spend the rest of his miserable life chained up in my dungeon instead of experiencing a quick merciful death, and Christine got to throw away Herbert. Also, I had to go to counseling to get my mother issues taken care of, and I had to give her that cute little Mephistopheles bobble-head doll I got from Monsieur Richard."

"Dang. I was hoping you'd leave that to me when you died. So then what happened?"

Erik giggled absurdly, and it was almost as frightening as the dance had been. "Then she let me kiss her. Actually, at first, she had me give her this sissy little peck on the forehead. But I decided that wouldn't do. If she was to kiss me like that in front of all my gothic bad-boy buddies, I'd never live it down. So, trying to remember everything I'd seen at all the makeout parties I've spied on over the years, I gave her a _real_ kiss. Then I started crying."

"Then what?"

"She got all huffy and said, 'What? I'm not that bad of a kisser, am I? Raoul never complained!'

"She was about to stomp off indignantly, but I held her back. "No, no, honey, these are tears of joy. I'm sorry about all the trouble I've caused. I think I'll let you go and marry your little boyfriend after all. I can die happy now.

"She just stared at me for a few minutes like I was from Mars, then started screaming at me so loudly I thought the tunnels would cave in. 'You mean to tell me that you've kidnapped me, tortured my boyfriend and the Anonymous-Foreign-Guy-With-Some-Vague-Connection-to-You, killed various bystanders, and drugged a whole team of techies for essentially _no reason?_ Plus, I've already done my makeup and hair! Oh, no, no, no, buster, we're getting married now whether you like it or not!'

"After a few minutes, I managed to convince her to leave with the boy. 'I'll only ask one thing. I'll let you know when I'm dead, and I want you to come back and bury me. Nessie and the Siren have a tendency to chew on corpses that are left lying around in the open.'"

By this point, the Persian was crying like a little girl. He'd always been a softie, and this "chick-flick" style tragedy was getting to be too much for him. Not wanting this to get back to the rest of the Gothic Baddies, he sent Erik away.

Three weeks later, the Daroga noticed a copy of the Parisian Enquirer at the newsstand on the corner, proclaiming in bold red letters that Richard and Moncharmin had called off their wedding. As he flipped through the pages, searching for the article, a small ad in the back of the paper caught his eye. "Two Bedroom Lair for Rent! Lakeside property, fully furnished, pets okay. P.S., Erik is dead."

****

Epilogue

See? The Opera Ghost was real, and I've got witnesses to prove it! SO THERE!

The old managers, Debienne and Poligny, will back me up on that. Then again, they're not really a reliable source. They also believe in UFO's, Santa Claus, and the Boogeyman.

Then there's Richard and Moncharmin. They wrote the whole incident off as a practical joke. That theory had a lot of holes in it, but since the ghost gave them back all their money a few days after it happened, they weren't particularly interested in him anymore.

__

And I found a whole bunch of the ghost's secret passages while snooping around the opera house, _and _I found a whole bunch of graffiti in his old dungeon that said, "Raoul de Chagny wuz here", _and _I found a bunch of Loch Ness Monster footprints all around the lake. Try and write that off as a coincidence!

The Persian was the best source of info. He told me about the Phantom's past. Apparently, there was a reason he had all those mother issues, and spending several years in a traveling freak show after he left home didn't help to normalize him any. After he left the freak show, he dropped off the face of the earth for twenty-five months, six days, and two hours, then turned up on the floor in a Persian bar. The Persian (the guy who tried to help Raoul save Christine, not one of the gazillions of other Persians in Persia) was working his way through college as a bartender there at the time, and they got to be buddies.

Erik enrolled at the Daroga's school, Manzenderan A&M, on a magician's scholarship, and they both graduated with honors. The shah and sultana were at the graduation, and Erik immediately charmed them with his "coin behind the ear" trick. (Back then, this stunt was a brand new, cutting-edge innovation.) The shah made the mistake of giving Erik power over the whole country, and it wasn't pretty. Erik was as murderous then as ever. He killed people who had only committed misdemeanors. He killed people who stared at his mask. He killed people who sneezed in his presence. He killed people who wore blue on Thursday. You get the picture.

None of this bothered the shah. However, when he found out that a certain phantom had been moonlighting as an architect for the Sultan of Turkey, he decided Erik had gone too far. The daroga, who had been made chief of police, was ordered to hunt him down and execute him. Funny, you'd think somebody smart enough to run a whole country would realize that it might not be such a bright idea to have the best friend be the one to carry out the execution.

After the daroga snuck him out of Persia, Erik hitchhiked over to Constantinople and went to work for the Sultan full time. However, he hadn't been there more than a year or two before he had to call the Persian to come smuggle him out of there, too. Having had his fill of Middle Eastern monarchies, Erik went back to France and started his own construction company. He had always been interested in architecture, plus he really seemed to enjoy wearing those hardhats for some childish reason. When he was hired to help build the Garnier Opera House, he suddenly decided that it might be fun to give up his relatively normal life as a contractor, dig himself a labyrinth under the opera house, move into it, and never see the light of day again. (?)

Then he met this gullible girl name Christine and got all obsessed with her, yatta yatta yatta, you know the drill. Anyway, while I was snooping around down there, I tripped over an old skeleton that I think was Erik's. It was wearing Christine's ring and clutching a broken ventriloquist's dummy. Ever since then, I've been passing petitions around, trying to get Erik's skeleton put where it rightfully belongs; hung up on a wall in the National Academy of Music for the tourists to gawk at. I'm sure the reclusive Phantom would have loved that. What? It's supposed to be a gesture of respect, you nitwits! Oh, forget it.

The End


End file.
